WWF St. Louis – January 1, 1984 – Hulk Hogan’s Debut

WWF St. Louis
Date: January 1, 1984
Location: The Chase, St. Louis, Missouri
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Gene Okerlund

Now as some of you may know, WWF would have a lot more house shows back in the day. What they would do is film these shows in their major cities and have commentary for them, then air them on local television. They did this in New York and MSG for years. They would also split these up and air them on syndicated shows. This is one from St. Louis. This is about three weeks before Hogan won the world title so it’s an era we don’t really see. Let’s get to it.

The Chase is a legendary wrestling venue in St. Louis but is actually a hotel. The NWA ran shows there for years and WWF came in at the very end to do a few months worth of shows.

Vince and Gene run down the card.

Dennis Stamp/Jerry Valiant vs. Rocky Johnson/Tony Atlas

Johnson/Atlas are tag champions but this is non-title. Stamp vs. Rocky starts us off. Rocky is called The Rock and it’s off to Atlas. Atlas hits some bad dropkicks and we’re in squash city here. Off to Valiant who is more of a brawler. Not that it does him any good as he gets knocked backwards quickly by right hands. A flying headscissors by Johnson takes Valiant down and it’s back to Tony.

Off to a test of strength because Valiant is stupid enough to try that with him. Now Atlas uses a headscissors. Symmetry people! Valiant takes him down into a chinlock as this match is getting more time than I expected it to. Back to Johnson who gets double teamed in the corner as well. And never mind as Atlas comes in, gorilla presses Stamp and splashes him for the pin.

Rating: C-. Just a long squash here but that’s what a lot of TV back then was supposed to be. Johnson and Atlas are a team that the more I see of them the more I like of them. Atlas especially as he’d be a great guy to have around today with his look and power. Decent match here and a good way to showcase the champs.

Ken Jugan vs. David Schultz

Schultz is most famous for attacking a journalist who asked if wrestling was fake. He’s known as Dr. D. Schultz grabs a headlock to begin and rides him on the mat. Jugan hasn’t gotten in a single shot yet. Schultz pulls him up after an elbow drop and keeps beating on him. Out to the floor as the beating continues. A backbreaker gets two. This is getting boring now as it’s been going on way too long. Back to the floor again as there’s nothing to talk about in this. Schultz hits various offense and Jugan gets nothing in at all. Jugan gets in some very weak punches and then gets tombstoned (called a southern piledriver) for the pin.

Rating: D-. Like I said, there’s only so much you can get out of a guy getting destroyed for this long. One thing that’s kind of different: the announcer reads the time and even says what the finishing move was. Ok he didn’t here but he did in the first place. This ran over seven minutes so you can see how it gets a bit uninteresting.

Bill Dixon vs. Hulk Hogan

Oh my goodness! Now THIS is an historic moment. This right here is Hulk Hogan’s first match back in the WWF after being gone for about four years and becoming a superstar in Rocky III. He comes out to Eye of the Tiger and is way over. Hulk would jump into the world title scene in about two weeks, winning the title in about three weeks and holding if for four years.

Actually, this is being reviewed on the anniversary of his title win so that’s appropriate. Hogan takes him to the mat with a Fujiwara Armbar ala Del Rio. Dixon hammers away but Hulk comes back with a big boot, slam and the big leg (I’m assuming making its WWF debut) ends this. Total squash but the crowd reaction tells you everything you need to know here. This is history people.

The local network president welcomes WWF to St. Louis. It lasted about two months.

Hulk says he loves St. Louis and that he’s focused on an upcoming battle royal. He wants a world title shot. Bear in mind he’s 1-0 (by his own admission) and he’s just declared himself #1 contender.

Murdoch and Adonis say they want the tag titles. They would get them in about 4 months.

Johnson and Atlas come in and say St. Louis is their home away from home.

Big John Studd says he’s awesome. He has a new manager named Magaw Maginaw. No idea who that is but he looks like Luscious Johnny V.

Jimmy Jackson vs. Big John Studd

In the words of Rocky III, “my prediction? PAIN.” Jackson tries to slam him and that goes nowhere. Studd offers him a top wristlock which goes just as well. Over the shoulder backbreaker ends this quick. Another squash.

Bill Berger vs. Ivan Putski

Putski is a Polish dude that is short but incredibly muscular. See, he’s really strong. That’s about it. And he’s Polish. This is just Putski using his strength to break almost everything and throw Berger around. Eventually the Polish Hammer (double axe to the chest) ends this.

Rating: D-. No idea what there is to say here. Putski is a pretty boring guy and this was no exception. His shoulders are huge but he has little chicken legs. Nothing really to see here and these squashes are certainly a generational thing. You couldn’t get away with this if your life depended on it.

Terry Daniels/Kevin Collins vs. Adrian Adonis/Dick Murdoch

This is probably the main event. Adonis vs. Daniels gets us going. Really I don’t know what to say here. After like 6 squashes there’s only so much you can say. Daniels is sent to the floor and thoroughly pummeled. Back in and he gets beaten up even more. Collins comes in and gets beaten up as this is really boring. Adonis puts Collins to sleep to end this.

Rating: D. See any other match already tonight to get the idea here.

Overall Rating: D+. This is a hard one to grade. There were certainly a lot of big names on here and for a TV show that aired locally, there isn’t really a lot to complain about. For the masses, this wouldn’t have been much. Most of 1984 was pretty generic stuff, but once 85 got here things took off like a rocket. Not much here, but you have to keep some specifics in mind.

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall




Royal Rumble Count-Up – 2006: Mark Henry Goes On After Cena?

Royal Rumble 2006
Date: January 29, 2006
Location: American Airlines Arena, Miami, Florida
Attendance: 15,000
Commentators: Joey Styles, Michael Cole, Tazz, Jerry Lawler,

The main changes are Batista and Cena. They’ve more or less taken over the company as the biggest things in the world. Except for Batista because he’s out with an injury. Edge is the current reigning world champion though as he had more or less stolen the title at New Year’s Revolution. He’s got his rematch with Cena tonight. On the other side, Mark Henry is main eventing the show. I give up.

The other main issue is of course the death of Eddie Guerrero, which there’s been more than enough written about already. Other than that, there’s just not a lot going on here. This more or less is the first Rumble of what would be classified as the modern era, so let’s get to it.

The intro is just a recap of the major feuds. For some reason, Angle vs. Henry gets the most hype. Naturally they push Raw vs. Smackdown again. Edge is the Rated R Champion now. Lita’s stomach is the thing that dreams are made of. I’ve always wanted to say that. For reasons that no one will ever comprehend, the theme is Roman or something, which meant nothing and no one wanted to see. Stephanie in Roman clothing was nice though.

Cruiserweight Championship: Cruiserweight Open

This is the standard thing they were doing back in the day as they had completely given up on having any kind of storylines or flow to the division, so they just said screw it and threw everyone into one massive match where everyone is legal at once. In this, you have to be either the current Champion or a former champion. The participants are Kid Kash who is the champion, Paul London, Nunzio, Funaki, Gregory Helms and Jamie Noble.

London is wearing a gold mask for some reason that was never really explained. Helms is a surprise here. Oh geez there’s a Roman theme again where they have guys opening the door where people from out of the back from. It’s kind of like KOTR 96 for those of you that have seen that. Helms is from Raw here so he’s an outsider or something like that. Shockingly, the match is a pure mess to start as there are no tags or anything like that. Screw that order stuff.

London’s dropsault is stupid when it’s just one person but it’s cool when there’s two. It’s completely not effective but it looks good. Heck Rock won a bunch of world titles like that though so who cares? London looks like Tajiri for some reason. This is a pure spotfest here with nothing resembling flow or a story or anything like that, which makes sense I guess. At least they didn’t try as that would have been really stupid.

In a nice spot, Funaki whips Noble in and he launches a suicide dive through the ropes to take out two guys. You can tell a lot of these spots are preplanned but that’s fine as it’s working pretty well for what it’s supposed to be. With almost everyone else on the floor, London goes to the top rope and throws a shooting star press to the floor, more or less missing everyone and just slamming into the floor.

It looked PAINFUL and the fans give him a well deserved holy crap chant. In a cool spot that I haven’t seen before, London and Helms are on the top and Helms hits a swinging neckbreaker to get us back on the mat. It looked a lot better than it sounds.

For those of you that don’t know, Kash was a fairly big deal in ECW but other than that he’s been a minor player at best. The steps in the background are orange here so it looks like a bunch of empty seats. They get really fast in a hurry but it gets cut off too fast as Helms hits a Shining Wizard to Funaki for the pin.

Rating: B-. Now before everyone jumps on me, this isn’t the same kind of grade that I would give a normal match because this wasn’t supposed to be a standard match. This was designed to be completely insane and all spots to get the crowd awake and it worked fine. That’s the point of this and it did its job, so it gets a decent grade. There is no story to something like this and there shouldn’t be. Helms would hold the belt over a year.

Vince and Teddy long are around the Rumble drawing and Vince tells Long to leave. Naturally there are three hot women there. Orton and HHH come in and draw their numbers. Orton is happy and HHH hates his. Sex jokes abound as these two continue their eternal battle that never goes anywhere. Victoria looks incredible.

Trish is getting ready to be the referee. Mickie James says she loves her, and we have a lesbian stalker angle.

Mickie James vs. Ashley Massaro

For no apparent reason, this isn’t for the title as Trish is the referee and the champion here. They would have a decent match at Mania. This is back when Mickie was not only insane but also wore ridiculously awesome skirts. Ashley was one of the biggest flops in wrestling history as the winner of the Diva search who was just awful on a lot of levels. If nothing else we have Lillian, Mickie and Trish in the same ring. That’s not bad at all.

They have a headlock and actually go to the floor without breaking it up. That’s hard to do. Ashley can’t even lock up right. That’s almost sad. What’s sadder is that Joey has to say she’s a superstar. Oh yeah this was also when Mickie would scream her head off, which I’ve always liked for some reason. Ashley tried at least so I’ll give her that. The crowd is completely dead by the way. Mickie’s figure is flat out mesmerizing.

This is so odd to see someone with so much talent like James and someone with so little in Ashley. The thing here is that Mickie loves Trish but Trish trained Ashley. There are far too many bad submissions being done here to have a coherent match too. Ashley goes on offense and while it’s really bad, she’s trying. You can tell the different between someone that just doesn’t want to be there and Ashley, while bad, is trying.

However, her offense is either so limited or the fans like Mickie so much that they completely turn on her and boo her LOUDLY. Mickie powerbombs her out of the corner and Trish is really hesitant to count it, which is either part of the angle or then just giving up and saying let’s try to save some face here and just ending it early. Either of those would be believable to me.

Rating: C-. And that’s as generous as I can be. Ashley was bad here, but she was trying as hard as she could and I can easily respect that. Now later on when she just didn’t care, screw that. The fans turning on her like that annoyed me, but I can get what their point was. This was really just to set up Trish vs. Mickie, which is fine.

We see Helms at the WWE Interactive area, which means he’s chatting on WWE.com, which WCW had about 10 years prior to this.

More Rumble drawings with Rey and Big Show. It’s preceded by Vince checking the girls’ tattoos which is just annoying and stupid. In a funny bit, Show can’t get his hand in the tumbler to get a number out. Show is pleased and Rey is…oh screw it. They’re talking about Eddie again, which draws a huge chant and gives away the ending to the Rumble. Ok, before this comes up later, let’s just get it out of the way now.

The WWE needs to understand something. No wait, actually wrestling in general needs to understand something. When a wrestler dies unexpectedly, it doesn’t make them better. Eddie was indeed a very good if not great wrestler, but based on the things you hear about him now, you would think he was Ric Flair. He’s more about the level of Randy Orton or so. However, the undisputed champion of this is ECW with Louie Spicolli.

He was the epitome of an ok if not decent wrestler that was all of a sudden great after he died from a drug overdose. He simply was not as good as people made him out to be. For all of you ECW marks out there, show me ONE very good Spicolli match. It doesn’t even have to be great.

Show me one time where he had a great match. What was my point here? Oh yeah. Eddie was very good, but he only became considered great after dying. “KB you don’t know anything. He won the world title!” Yeah well this is 2 days after TLC and Sheamus is world champion so the belt really doesn’t prove all that much does it?

JBL vs. Boogeyman

The idea here is that JBL is terrified of Boogey. Oh and Boogey bit the “mole” off of Jillian’s face. She’s his assistant here or something like that. My goodness JBL has fallen far since winning the world title less than two years before this. It continues to amuse me when someone like Boogeyman is weighed in. And now I’m annoyed. I’ve never liked the Boogeyman character for one reason: he makes a mockery of wrestling.

Now yes, there’s a lot of stupid characters and while I tend to dislike the majority of them, when they can have a decent match, it’s almost acceptable. Boogeyman couldn’t do that, so when he does stuff like eat worms, then spit them up and spit them down into Jillian’s mouth, I have no use for him at all. It continues to have stupidity attached to it as we have to hear about how disgusted the announcers are.

Seriously, the Four Horsemen are in the same business as this guy. That’s just ridiculous. Thankfully, this lasts about a minute and a half, as after a stupid brawl where Boogey sells nothing at all, JBL misses a Clothesline From JBL and somehow slams into the post in a completely awful looking spot. A pumphandle slam ends it.

Rating: F-. This would usually be an N/A, but this was just a complete and utter waste of time. Seriously, why did this need to happen? I know it took less than 5 minutes, but really, there was NOTHING else we could have used that for? I hate gimmicks like these, I truly do.

Vince hits on the girls more and you can see they hate it. Shelton’s mama shows up. This was a freaking stupid gimmick where Shelton’s mom showed up to make sure he was taken care of. It was some comedienne that no one has ever heard of in a fat suit. You figure out how well it worked. Melina shows up and gets hit on too. Mama prevents him from hitting on her.

MNM, Joey Mercury and Johnny “Morrison” Nitro show up to draw as well. Both seem fairly middle of the road with their numbers. Melina says they’ll eliminate Shawn. We finish this long segment off with more Vince hitting on the girls. They eventually became a stable called Vince’s Devils. Yeah it went nowhere.

Before the Rumble starts, we have the Spirit Squad. Now for those of you that weren’t around for these guys, they were male cheerleaders that won the tag titles from Kane and Big Show. Amazingly everyone said the only one with talent was Kenny Dykstra. The one known as Nick became known as Dolph Ziggler. What does that tell you? Lillian is jaw dropingly hot here.

Royal Rumble

Lillian flubbing her lines is somehow sexy. How is that possible? HHH is number one and Rey is number two. Well you certainly can’t say they’re using no names to start us out. This is big match that’s never happened before. Oh the intervals are 90 seconds here. Oh here we go Rey is driving a lowrider. HEY, WE GET IT ABOUT FREAKING EDDIE! I wouldn’t be so annoyed about it, but seriously, he brought up Eddie in the BATISTA feud.

Oh look he draped an Eddie shirt on the car. This is freaking ridiculous because it’s obvious Rey is going to win here for the sake of “honoring Eddie.” Rey’s entrance reaches Taker levels of time. He does the ten punches in the corner and looks up before he does it. This is freaking ridiculous and we’re just hitting number 3 which is Simon Dean. Cole, who is doing the commentary with Lawler, FREAKS because a Smackdown guy is attacking a Smackdown guy.

They team up and eliminate him easily. Have I mentioned that I hate the Bronco Buster? Psicosis of the Mexicools is 4th. They were a team of Mexican stereotypes who rode lawnmowers. I wish I was making that up. Rey counters a Razor’s Edge to put him out with ease again so we stay with those two guys. Number 5 is Flair of all people. He trips coming into the ring as Rey is down for no apparent reason.

Flair and HHH hammer on each other for awhile as I think HHH is a heel here. Oh yeah he would be. That was a stupid comment. He and Flair feuded over the IC belt of all things in some decent matches. You know for a guy that was allegedly the biggest ladies man ever, he used a lot of testicular claws. He’s gone soon after and we’re back at 2 people. Big Show is 6th so hopefully we get people in here for awhile.

He’s mad at HHH also, which is still going on today, which works as it’s been less than five years ago so a feud can easily go on that long. Naturally Show dominates here. With an eyeroll from me, Coach is number 7. Why did he always get spots in the Rumble? Show puts him out in about 30 seconds. Show demonstrates his intelligence by having HHH above his head twice and not even getting close to the ropes.

The announcers say that Coach might have set a record for shortest time in the Rumble. That’s so stupid I’m not even going to bother making fun of it. Lashley is 8th and they say he could be a dark horse. Can I get a rim shot? He’s a rookie phenomenon here, meaning that his career wouldn’t mean much since Vince refused to ever pull the trigger on him, even though he tried. In an impressive move, he gets a backdrop on Show as Kane, who is currently tag champions with Show, is 9th.

He and Lashley square off in a match of two guys that will never win a world title in WWE again. In a very impressive looking spot that wasn’t really that impressive, he hits the Dominator on Kane. Rey has been down WAY too long for no apparent reason. Sylvan, playing a gay character who doesn’t actually say he’s gay is 10th. He’s the fashion consultant or something. Yeah he’s gone in about 30 seconds.

Show and Kane hit a double chokeslam on Lashley and throw him out. So HHH and Rey are more or less just laying on the mat for about 5-6 minutes at a time which is again, stupid. HHH puts Kane and Big Show out, thus reaffirming his theory that he could out fight God if he had to.

Carlito is 11th, as other than the first two guys, no one has lasted 10 minutes yet. I really don’t like this theory of only having a few guys in there for the majority of the match. The Rumble should have about 6-7 guys in the ring for the majority of the match. It’s just right and it allows for things to not be too boring but also not too weak. Benoit is 12th as we’re picking up a bit.

He chops and suplexes the heck out of everyone just because he’s Chris Benoit and they’re not. Carlito gets a crossface for good measure as Benoit is freaking awesome. He and HHH fight over a suplex with Benoit on the apron which was cool looking if nothing else. The Canadian fights out of that and hits the headbutt on HHH so Carlito can get back up. Booker is 13th and the US Champion at the moment.

He’s wearing long tights which looks odd indeed. He would become king in a few months. Yep Booker is gone already, naturally by Benoit as those two were eternally joined at the hip for some reason. Apparently 20 minutes or so is a long time now. So the most we’ve had is what, 5 people I believe?

Mercury of MNM is 14th and since he brings Melina with him, he’s awesome. I love the way they carried the belts as they hung them from their pants so they swung between their legs. It’s original if nothing else. Mercury really is underrated in the ring. He’s a lot better than people realize. Cole brags about setting ratings records on UPN. That’s just hilarious. Tatanka is 15th to ZERO reaction.

He returned for a few months and no one, I mean NO ONE cared at all. His offense has somehow gotten even more generic if that’s possible which I didn’t think it was. The fans do the Florida St. Seminole chant to try to validate his entrance. Nitro is 16th. More commonly known as John Morrison if you’re not familiar. Tatanka beats on him, which somehow validated Matt Hardy and Tatanka vs. MNM on PPV in a non title match. You read that right.

The fans chant Eddie to just tick me off even more. Only Vince would manage to use death to push storylines. Trevor Murdoch is 17th. To recap we have HHH, Rey, Carlito, Benoit, Mercury, Nitro, Murdoch and for some reason Tatanka. Cole takes a lull to mention that Rey is dedicating this match to Eddie. Eugene is 18th, and is booed out of the freaking building. He’s a classic case of a comedy character being used badly.

Rey hurts him to get a solid pop. For the love of all goodness Animal of the LOD is 19th. Seriously, who picked these people? Oh apparently the new LOD are the long time rivals of MNM. You know, the team that’s been around for a few months. There are WAY too many people in there right now. RVD is 20th to a HUGE pop. Thankfully for the first time in history the company listened to the pop and made him world champion in June before he smoked his way out of the main event.

Oh yeah this was the summer that ECW returned. He cleans house of course. MNM is doing the Demolition thing of teaming up on everyone which is smart. Animal is out thank goodness. Orlando Jordan is 21st and I somehow manage to lose even more interest in this match. There are FAR too many people in the ring at the moment. Chavo is 22nd. Ok, him I have no problem with doing the pointing thing. There’s your difference between Chavo and Rey.

Chavo won a match with JBL on the Eddie tribute show, pointed to the sky a few times, and started using the frog splash. He’s mentioned Eddie a few times over the years, but for the most part he’s just said that he’s a Guerrero which he would have been no matter what. He had one angle with Rey over the Guerrero name, which made sense when you thought about it. That’s perfectly fine.

Then you have Rey, who used the splash, drove a lowrider, blew one up, pointed to the sky and dedicated about a year’s worth of matches to Eddie, using him as an angle and getting the world title because of it. He still mentions Eddie for storylines 4 years after Eddie passed away. There’s paying homage then there’s just being freaking ridiculous. What does Chavo get for being more humble about it? He lasts a minute here while Rey lasts an hour.

Of course Chavo shouldn’t have won or been in the last group or anything, but would 10-15 minutes have killed anyone? Seriously, Tatanka can get a long time but Chavo can’t? Matt Hardy is 23rd. There’s like 12 people in there right now and it’s absurd. You can’t see anything in there at the moment either. Tatanka FINALLY goes out as Super Crazy is 24th. What is the point of half these guys being in here?

Shawn is 25th to a nice pop. He gets pyro when he comes out which is odd in a Rumble match. He ends Murdoch to thin the ranks out a bit. Chris Masters, who is more or less a newcomer at this point, somehow gets pyro also at 26th. I’m not even bothering to try to tell who all is in there at this point. Nothing of note is happening anyway. Viscera, currently the world’s largest love machine is 27th.

He puts out the far more talented Matt Hardy, but not before giving him the Visagra, which is where the other guy is on his stomach and Viscera gets on top of them and gyrates his hips. Yeah it’s worse than it sounds. Shelton is in next along with his mother. This is somehow stupider than I thought it was going to be. Eugene is gone, leaving a huge pool of sweat on the mat beneath him.

They’re really speeding up the intervals here to get through this. Goldust, who is returning for like the 12th time is 29th. That leaves Orton as number 30. Rey puts Crazy out as Orton comes out last. Ok, so your final group is Rey, HHH, Carlito, Benoit, Mercury, Nitro, RVD, Jordan, Shawn, Masters, Viscera, Shelton, Goldust and Orton. Yeah that’s not too many people at all. Screw the sarcasm. YES IT’S TOO MANY PEOPLE!

Geez do you think 14, or just under half of the people being left at the end is enough? Why don’t we just get rid of the whole unique aspect of the freaking match and make it a regular battle royal like the classic World War 3 series that WCW used to do? Those things went great didn’t they? Blast it Vince how hard is it to book a freaking Rumble? You have about 7-8 guys in at the end, 5-6 of them are big names and two or three jobbers.

Three are legit contenders, three are dark horses, and two are jobbers. There, that took 8 seconds to come up with. Orton puts Benoit out which Cole says is a rematch from Summerslam two years ago. More like a year and a half but who cares about facts? Carlito and Masters put out Viscera and then Carlito throws out Masters. Goldust takes forever to set up Shattered Dreams but at least manages to kick that turnbuckle really well.

RVD puts him out just before Orton puts out Jordan. Shawn and HHH go at it to keep the balance of the universe in order. Shawn puts out both of MNM within 5 seconds of each other to further kill the tag division which HHH and Shawn are the current champions of as of this being written. Sweet Chin Music puts out Shelton as Shawn is on a roll. Vince’s music hits as he and Shawn were feuding at the moment. He distracts Shawn so Shane can put Shawn out.

That leaves us with Rey, HHH, Carlito, Orton and RVD. Well I’m glad they took their time getting rid of the people. Shawn goes after Shane but HHH stops him but gets chin music. HBK chases the McMahons out because he’s a face and they’re heels. Van Dam puts Carlito out to give us our final four of Rey, HHH, Orton and RVD. RVD was returning so he wasn’t going to win.

HHH and Orton were possible and Rey was the clear winner so there we go. They split off with HHH vs. Rey and Orton vs. RVD. The faces hit some nice double team stuff to hurt the heels. Van Dam shows how stupid he is by going for a Five Star and gets put out. Orton and HHH get together for no apparent reason other than to beat up a guy that’s 5’5. However, Rey is empowered by the memories of a guy that he feuded with so he takes them both down.

Orton fights HHH. Rey puts out HHH and it’s officially inevitable. Rey gets beaten up by HHH to just further make us take note of how awesome Rey is. Orton acts cocky and yeah Mysterio is going to Mania. Orton would get in and make it a triple threat where Rey would win the title and of course, dedicate it to Eddie since that’s all he’s allowed to do.

Rating: D. Eddie oversaturation aside, this Rumble sucked and it sucked hard. The booking was way off here as there were far too few guys in the ring at first and far too few in the end. The Rey thing annoys the heck out of me as people like to say RIP Eddie, yet they have zero problem with his history being exploited for the sake of bad storylines. Rey was passable as champion, but let him get there on his own and not because a guy died. That’s just stupid.

Other than that, WAY too many jobbers and fillers in there, which kind of reflects on the company as a whole. Seriously, why did Booker and Lashley stay in there for just a bit? To be fair, Booker was hurt so that might explain it. Either way, this match was awful in a lot of ways and I hated it quite a bit.

Rey is happy with his win.

We recap Cena vs. Edge, which was a result of the first cashing in of the Money in the Bank in a truly shocking moment. This was a huge thing as Cena was completely dominant and everyone was TICKED when he held the title again after the Elimination Chamber.

But when Vince’s music went on, everyone knew what was coming and it was awesome. Naturally Cena insisted on a rematch and talked about respect and having the title mean a lot to him. This was also the reign with the live sex celebration that apparently made Edge’s career better than Taker’s.

Raw World Title: John Cena vs. Edge

So the scaffolds from the ceiling begin to lower. Smoke and lights and pyro go off. Styles says it looks like a spaceship. Yep, Cena is getting a special entrance that of course looks awesome. More or less his feet are where the top of his head would be if he was walking normally. Yeah there’s nothing at all that’s being implied about who wins here at all. Lita of course looks completely amazing. If nothing else I’ve heard Edge’s theme live so that’s cool.

For the love of all goodness, change the spinner belt. The W is spun almost halfway around and it just looks stupid. It starts off with their standard stuff which is traditionally good. Cena starts off in control but thanks to Lita Edge hits a spear into the steps, which more or less proves that he desperately needs a new finisher. We go into the crowd for just a bit but it goes nowhere. Cena dives in to beat the ten count which if nothing else looked cool.

Edge goes old school with his spinning heel kick. Why is Joey Styles the only commentator that mentions the referee’s names consistently? Cena can sell really well if nothing else. Good night Lita’s chest is amazing. The announcers get into an interesting argument: who is the better technical wrestler? That’s a most interesting question that’s going to get a thread soon. Edge’s facials remain awesome as ever. The crowd is fairly loudly booing John here.

Edge chokes Cena so of course despite being put in a hold that should kill him or would end any MMA fight, he gets up with ease. Both guys are down so we get another few shots of Lita’s chest to fill time. Following some botched interference from the hot chick, the FU and STFU give Cena the belt again. That was abrupt.

Rating: B. Eh, this was what it was. Cena and Edge work together just fine so their matches are almost always passable. Edge was more or less given the title as a test run and that’s fine. He got his name in there and that’s what counts. Cena was definitely the right choice to have the belt going into Mania so I have no issues with the booking here. The match was fine and it came off well. It’s nothing great but it’s fine for a title change that goes 15 minutes.

In case you were wondering, Rey is still happy that he won.

We do a very quick, as in about 10 second long recap of Angle vs. Henry, which consists of Henry breaking the ankle lock, which had been done by about 15 people up to this point, but it’s impressive here because of POWER. Angle was a transitional champion if there ever was one.

He took over when Batista got hurt (shocking isn’t it?) so he’s held the title less than three weeks at this point. Angle does his usual solid promo and then comes back to tell Henry he sucks. That’s what makes Angle better than most. He would head to TNA later in the year and be a huge coup for TNA.

Smackdown World Title: Kurt Angle vs. Mark Henry

So Daivari used to hang out with Angle but he dumped him for Henry for no apparent reason. Soon after this Khali would show up. Yeah Angle is introduced as the new World Heavyweight Champion here. That’s the beauty of having guys like Angle or Shawn on your roster.

If something like an injury happens, you can throw the title on them for a quick fix and because they hang around the upper midcard with occasional main event matches, it’s perfectly believable to put the belt on them and no one really had a problem with Angle as champion. We get a fairly long feeling out period, but Henry catches Angle in position for the World’s Strongest Slam. Naturally though instead of slamming him though, he throws him to the floor.

More or less Henry beats the heck out of Angle for awhile as you would expect. Good night Henry you’ve been in the company ten years at this point. Don’t you think it’s time you learned some new offense? I mean really, we know you can slam, club, punch and squeeze. LEARN ANYTHING NEW. Angle gets a bad German, but to be fair, look what he’s working with. Angle Slam gets two. Henry powers out of the ankle lock using the same counter that everyone else uses to knock the referee down.

Angle gets a bad chair shot to Daivari and takes it into the ring. The chair is bent which always looks cool. Angle goes Hogan and cheats but remains a face. Two decent chair shots put Henry down but the fans are more or less dead here. They of course get two which gets a decent pop. I really don’t get the point of the chairs this early in the match. Angle pulls the turnbuckle pad off the middle turnbuckle and sends Henry’s head into it on a reversal for the pin. Really? That’s the best you’ve got?

Rating: D-. I have no freaking clue what they were going for here, but it was just an epic failure. Henry had no business being in there but he came off looking like a far bigger face than Angle did. It was really short, and I have no idea what the point was of this main eventing the show. Oh wait. Now I get it.

A gong goes off and the lights go purple. Ok, Taker has druids and a horse drawn chariot. That makes up for the main event. He signals that he wants the belt and sets off lightning. The ropes fall to the ground and the ring collapses as Angle holds the belt to his chest as we go off the air. Ok, that was freaking cool.

Overall Rating: C-. This was a very lackluster show. I know a lot of people will love the Eddie tributes etc. but I HATED them. One or two points to the sky and some frog splashes are just fine but seriously, giving the Rumble and ultimately the world title to a guy over Eddie? That’s WAY too much. Other than that, there’s just nothing special here at all. Edge and Cena is pretty easily the match of the night.

This show really was more about setting up for the future though, as Cena had to get the belt back and Angle had to get set up with Taker, which they managed to accomplish both. This really started setting the table for Mania, so that’s fine, but the show just wasn’t that interesting. Not recommended at all really, although some people might like it.

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall




Monday Nitro – November 18, 1996 – Easy E Turns

Monday Nitro #62
Date: November 18, 1996
Location: Florence Civic Center, Florence, South Carolina
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Tony Schiavone, Larry Zbyszko, Bobby Heenan, Eric Bischoff

We have finally arrived at something interesting. This is one of the shows where something actually happens and it happens at the end of the show. I know that’s kind of spoiling it, but this was over 15 years ago so it’s not exactly a huge deal. The matches tonight look like their usual uninteresting selves, but we’ll get to those as they come. Let’s get to it.

The show opened at like 7:55 this week, which was annoying for fans. Either way it opened with the NWO laying out various people with chairs and then taking over the announcers’ table. They intimidate Tony and Larry and talk about the triangle match. Two of the guys that are laid out are the Nasty Boys. Hall talks about the Faces of Fear and they walk out. The Faces of Fear jump them in the back and the Outsiders get knocked out the door.

Oh I forgot: this is the go home show for World War 3.

After a break, Tony says the attack was during a dark match. They air part of it but not the chair parts. Tony goes off on Larry for not getting in the Outsiders’ faces and walks off the broadcast. MAN this show just got a lot better!

Juventud Guerrera vs. La Parka

Larry has to hold the commentary himself here and is cool with that. Mike Tenay comes out a few moments into the match. Juvy hits a hard clothesline to take over and Parka breakdances up. This is La Parka’s WCW debut according to Tenay who wasn’t a loud annoying man at this point so I’ll listen to him. Out to the floor and Parka hits a suicide dive. They both go up top but Parka gets crotched and a springboard rana gets two for Juvy.

Lionsault Press gets two for Juvy but a springboard is countered by a dropkick by La for two. Out to the floor and Parka hits a plancha. There’s a surfboard by La Parka. I still love that move. Juvy hits a missile dropkick for two. There are multiple empty seats on the side opposite the hard camera. Juvy hits a springboard rana for two. Why isn’t the crowd more into this? This has been a pretty solid match.

A spinning victory roll into a rana gets two. La Parka goes up but misses a Swanton Bomb. Juvy Driver is countered into a messy small package for two. A DDT gets two for Guerrera. This is a shockingly good match. Juvy grabs a tornado DDT out of nowhere for two. These are some very close twos and the crowd could not care less. You uncultured swine. Guerrera goes up for a spinning rana but Parka holds the ropes and hits a reverse Whisper in the Wind (Jeff Hardy’s inspiration?) for the pin after about twelve minutes.

Rating: B. I might be overrating that but man I was getting into this at the end. Also points for surprise value here as who would have expected one of the most interesting TV matches in months from these two? This wasn’t a technically sound match and it’s not a classic or anything, but it was fun and they had me wanting to see who was going to win. That right there means a lot and probably means more than anything else a match can do. Very fun stuff.

Quick video on how Ultimo Dragon won the J-Crown Title.

Cruiserweight Title: Dean Malenko vs. Ultimo Dragon

Rey gets an inset interview, wanting a rematch with Dean. Dragon grabs the leg to take him down. Rey vs. Dragon on Sunday. They trade rollups and the Tiger Suplex, the move that would eventually get Dragon the title, gets two. Spinwheel kick puts Dean down and they head to the floor. Back in and Dean goes for the leg, hooking up the Cloverleaf. That draws in Sonny and in the melee, Dean throws Dragon over the top for the DQ.

Rating: C-. This was kind of puzzling to me. I mean, I get that they can’t put the title on Dragon yet because they were saving that for Starrcade, but at the same time, what was the point in this match at all? Both guys have matches on Sunday, but this doesn’t make either of them look weak or strong. I don’t really get it.

We recap last week with the French Canadians and the Heat, which we could barely see last week due to the Nasty Boys.

Amazing French Canadians vs. American Males

Parker is now dressed as a member of the French Foreign Legion. Also on Sunday it’s the Canadians vs. the Heat and if the Heat win, Sherri gets five minutes with Parker. Oulette vs. Bagwell gets us going. The Males clear the ring to start and it’s off to Riggs vs. Jacques. Jacques does some nip-ups for exercise I guess and grabs a headlock. My goodness Tenay is so much nicer to listen to than Tony.

We get to the important part of the match with the Males colliding to give us miscommunication, which is the whole reason they’ve been around more often lately. Rougeau slams Oulette onto Riggs as the Canadians dominate. Now we get some Canadian miscommunication and Bagwell comes in to clean house. Riggs gets in the way, kneeing Rougeau in the back to send him into Bagwell. Their heads collide and Jacques gets the pin.

Rating: D+. The match was ok I guess but I absolutely do not care about either of these teams. They’re not interesting at all but thankfully the Males will split soon. As for the Canadians….why? What is the appeal of them? They would show up again in the WWF in the Attitude Era for some reason. I still don’t get why but whatever.

Hugh Morrus vs. Lex Luger

Luger has been racking everyone in sight lately and they’re usually big guys. I wonder if we’ll see the same here. Nah I’m betting on Morrus. Anderson has even more to say about Luger, more or less the same things he’s been saying all month. I’d almost rather watch the Baltimore card they keep talking about than the PPV. The fans want Sting. Flair is going to be at the Baltimore show apparently.

Morrus hammers away on Luger with the power moves. This is the same match Luger has been doing lately but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. Luger makes his comeback with a back elbow but runs into one of his own. Hugh goes up but misses a splash. There’s the call for the Rack and there’s the submission. There’s some confusion here as Luger doesn’t quite have him up but in the half second he did, Morrus tapped. Luger didn’t realize it though so he tried it again. He yelled when the referee stopped him and I think he thought it was a DQ or something.

Rating: D. Pretty basic power match here as Luger continues his march through every big man in the company on his way to World War 3 where he’d do quite a bit of tossing out big men. The story for him was pretty well written so I can’t complain much about it. Decent enough match here but about as predictable as you could ask for.

Luger wants to win the battle royal and then the title from Hogan. And here comes Sting. The bat is red here and Sting shoves Luger back with it. Then he hands it to Luger and walks away. Luger says nothing and we go to a break.

Hour #2 begins.

We look at a clip from Saturday Night where Patrick and his attorney. Long and Jericho come in and after a weak set of arguing, Jericho vs. Patrick is set for Sunday with Jericho having one arm behind his back.

Chris Jericho vs. Johnny Grunge

I guess this is a warmup match for Sunday. Everyone is asking Heenan about Jericho apparently. That man gets talked to a lot. Nick Patrick is here scouting. As for the match, what exactly are you expecting? It’s Johnny Grunge vs. Chris Jericho. Jericho comes back with a spinwheel kick to send Grunge to the floor. Back in a release Stun Gun puts Chris down. Grunge brings in a chair and drops Jericho onto it. Somehow that isn’t a DQ but a backdrop over the top is. Go figure. Now he brings in a table and accidentally puts himself through it. A missile dropkick by Jericho ends this.

Rating: D. Well this was different. I guess they really wanted to put Jericho over strong here as DQ rules don’t seem to apply to him. Just a very strange match (a running theme tonight) with Grunge using a bunch of stuff that you don’t often see in a regular match but it wasn’t terrible.

Jericho says nothing of note but Teddy Long comes out and ups that by really saying nothing of note.

Here’s the NWO at the broadcast booth. Heenan bails and Hogan makes Bischoff say a bunch of things that aren’t exactly true but Hogan wants to hear.

Page comes out and says he’s still not NWO. The NWO comes up to him and Page turns them down again.

Jeff Jarrett vs. Bobby Eaton

This should be good. Jarrett messes with Eaton’s hair to start and that’s just asking for trouble. A punch sends Bobby to the floor and Eaton goes into the post. Jarrett hooks the Figure Four for the quick tap and here’s Flair. Match was like a minute long.

Flair endorses Jarrett post match. Also Jarrett says we need to unite. Sting is watching and Flair says Jarrett is a Horseman.

Big Bubba vs. Jim Powers

No Teddy with Powers now so I guess that association is over. Eric seems to avoid the Piper subject. Bubba hits the slide under the rope uppercut and off to a weak chinlock. Bubba dominates for awhile until Powers gets the standard jobber offense in. And there’s the Bossman Slam to end it. Just a squash.

Eddie Guerrero vs. Chris Benoit

These two had a lot of matches on this show. Woman is looking good tonight. They immediately go to the mat and Eric tries to keep up with them. Tilt-a-whirl backbreaker gets some control for Eddie but Benoit tries the same, only to be countered. Benoit takes it to the mat and hooks the Crossface which isn’t a big move yet. Sullivan says he’ll be waiting in Baltimore.

Slingshot hilo gets two for Eddie. They go to the mat where Benoit takes over. Off to something kind of like a reverse hammerlock followed by some modified Rings of Saturn. A powerbomb is countered into a sunset flip by Eddie for two. We take a break and come back with Benoit getting a few two counts. Gorilla press puts Eddie down.

Top rope superplex by Benoit puts both guys down and gets two for the Canadian. Eddie grabs a small package and Saito Suplex to set up the Frog Splash. Benoit moves but Eddie rolls through. Standing rana by Eddie is rolled through into a sunset flip and a fast count wins for Chris.

Rating: C+. Decent match here which was a nice change of pace from what we’ve had for the most part tonight. The ending was good if a little rushed. These two have had so many matches that they could probably have a decent one blindfolded, so that always helps. Fun stuff before we get to the serious part.

Eric is in the ring and says that he’s sorry for what Hogan made him say. Gee, you mean a wrestling announcer lied? Anyway, he says he tried to get Piper to sign to face Hogan but couldn’t. They’re going to keep trying though. Cue Piper for I believe his first appearance on Nitro. He says he’s never heard so many lies in his life. Well other than when he was talking of course. Piper is glad to be back in the Carolinas. His son was born here.

Piper quotes LL Cool J of all people to say Bischoff is lying. Eric is noticeably nervous. Piper talks about Eric coming to Portland and talking to his managers. He asks Eric if the road to Piper’s ranch is crooked or straight. Eric nervously says he doesn’t remember and here’s the NWO. Hogan and Eric hug, and Eric is NWO. Hogan flat out says Eric works for them. The Outsiders hold him and Hogan says how awesome he is. We’ve got cops in here as well as security and they break things up. Tenay and Heenan freak and Piper says he’ll have the contract ready at World War 3 to end the show.

Overall Rating: B. This was much better than last week as they had a very nice blend of the drama and the wrestling, which was the hallmark of WCW. World War 3 would pretty much suck but that was the tendency for most of their PPVs. Piper vs. Hogan didn’t quite set the world on fire but it got people watching and set up Hogan’s dominance of 97 so that’s a good thing for them.

Here’s World War 3 if you’re interested:

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall




World War 3 1996 – This Wasn’t Very Good

World War 3 1996
Date: November 24, 1996
Location: Norfolk Scope, Norfolk, Virginia
Attendance: 10,314
Commentators: Dusty Rhodes, Tony Schiavone, Bobby Heenan

Once again we’re going to do the three ring battle royal with the winner getting the title shot just after Starrcade. The entire roster is in that pretty much plus a ton of guys that are never on TV at all. We also have a man vs. woman match and Jericho vs. a referee. Yeah you can really tell how much thought there is in this show. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is just a basic rundown of what’s on the card tonight. The announcers wonder why Bischoff is trying to slow down the contract signing between Hogan and Piper. Something tells me this is going to dominate the conversation tonight.

J-Crown: Ultimo Dragon vs. Rey Mysterio

The J-Crown was a collection of 8 cruiserweight titles from around the world, one of which being the WWF Light Heavyweight Title which was active since the 80s and only defended in Japan and Mexico. Therefore, a WWF Title id being defended here on a WCW PPV. It also gave us this:

Seriously, how sweet does that look? There’s just a pile of championships in the corner. How awesome is that? He has so many belts he just piles them up. Ah apparently Bischoff has already joined the NWO. Good to know. We start off in a mat based match which is kind of odd but it can work. How weird is it to think that Rey would become a two time world champion?

Now they crank it up and get a nice ovation for it. WCW fans could always appreciate good wrestling and this was no exception. Dragon is dominating here which makes sense as he was pushed as a really different kind of cruiserweight that could mix it up incredibly well. Heenan sounds like he’s on speed here as he’s talking so fast. Dragon hits a powerbomb but picks Rey up again and throws him backwards into a hot shot. NICE.

We go WAY old school with a giant swing. Someone really needs to look at Bobby’s monitors. They’re always on the blink. The crowd loves Rey here. Pay no attention to that though. He’s a small guy of Mexican descent. He can’t ever mean anything. This is basically Dragon does a big move and Rey gets up every time. Rey could sell like few others so this is certainly good.

I’ve never gotten the order of the rings at these shows. It seems like they have this obsession with how many rings there are here and there and it never works. There’s no Mike Tenay for this either, which makes the commentary more annoying than helpful. Rey kind of botches some stuff but nothing too bad. A springboard sunset flip gets two for Rey. Good freaking night that man could move back in the day. After they crank it up again, Rey goes for the West Coast Pop but Dragon counters into a slingshot powerbomb to retain the pile of belts. They say Malenko is next.

Rating: B. This was solid again and one more time the cruiserweights set the table for what could be a promising show. Dragon was definitely a different kind of cruiserweight back then as he used more power and leverage stuff rather than high flying and it worked very well. He and Malenko had some very good stuff coming up that we’ll get to soon enough. Quite good match.

There’s a new WCW.com. Remember that this is in 1996 so I wouldn’t expect much. Mark Madden is the commentator person there.

DDP, looking like he more traditionally would, is being recruited by the NWO. Him never saying yes is what made him one of the few heroes in WCW fans’ eyes. He denies being associated with Bischoff other than being his neighbor and says he’ll win the battle royal with a BANG.

Chris Jericho vs. Nick Patrick

Patrick has been an evil referee that has screwed Jericho over a few times and this is revenge time. Jericho has Teddy Long as his manager which didn’t last long. He also has to have one arm behind his back. We hear about Nick Patrick’s wrestling career which also didn’t last long. It’s the left arm here so this should be dominance. Patrick cuts a short promo and we find out why he’s a referee.

Patrick is in a sleeveless shirt and is in the NWO here. He also has a neckbrace. With one arm, Patrick wants a test of strength. That whole wrestling background falls apart pretty quickly here as it’s all Jericho who puts on a clinic with one arm. It’s all Jericho as we go to the floor. Jericho misses a clothesline into the post though and Patrick takes over for a bit. Since his offense does nothing though, we’re kind of just wasting time here. Jericho channels his inner Shawn Michaels for a superkick to end it. This was the first pinfall loss for the NWO on PPV, four months after they debuted.

Rating: D+. Pretty boring but they came up with some fairly creative spots to let Patrick get some offense in. This was just kind of pointless though as there was no challenge at all for Jericho and it just kind of fell flat. It could have been FAR worse though.

Flair comes out for an interview. He’s hurt here so he’s off the card. Even with his arm in a sling the guy looks like a million bucks. On the radio a few months ago one of the hosts said they ran into him in Florida and that Flair could not have looked better, smelled better or have been a nicer guy. That’s always good to hear about guys like Flair who comes off as a jerk at times. He talks about a ton of guys and how this is about WCW and not the NWO. He guarantees the NWO will lose and stops to dance in between. That was awesome. Old guys can talk.

Giant vs. Jeff Jarrett

This was supposed to be Flair last month but since he was hurt then too they brought Jarrett in but he couldn’t do a thing with Giant. Giant stole the US Title belt from Flair who was champion but had it stripped from him for lack of defenses in 30 days. Jarrett is booed out of the building despite being Flair’s pick to fight Giant. Jarrett has been bragging that he didn’t get chokeslammed last month. Yeah that’s his big claim to fame at the moment.

The crowd is all over Jarrett here and loudly cheering for Giant. We hear about how Hogan got Giant into the NWO by promising him movie parts etc and sure enough Giant was in the movie Jingle All The Way which was in theaters the weekend of this show. Sting is up in the rafters and the show pretty much stops dead because of it. He comes down the steps and it’s hard to tell if he’s the real one or not. Giant misses a Vader Bomb and Jarrett takes him down with a cross body.

That might be the real Sting. He takes Jarrett out while Giant is on the floor. A chokeslam ends it. We’re of course told that Sting is clearly in the NWO now, which wouldn’t be officially answered until about March.

Rating: C-. Much better than their match last month as Jarrett didn’t try to come straight at him here and it looked like he was thinking more. Also Giant sold more of his stuff and it looked a lot better on that front too. This was just a pawn in the huge Sting chess game and on that worked very well, so definitely did its job.

Piper comes out with a contract in his hand. Bobby suggests that Piper is a bigger movie star than Hogan. I’ll leave that for you guys. Bischoff, Vincent and DiBiase come out sans Hogan. The next night Bischoff would say either join us or have your contracts voided which went nowhere but it got Bagwell to join.

Bischoff has power of attorney for Hogan so he can sign for Hogan. In a great bit of continuity, Piper shoves Vincent aside and tells him that he taught Vincent how to fight. Piper trained Vincent (Virgil in case that doesn’t ring a bell) to fight for his first match back in 1991. Piper says he can wear a leather jacket because he’s tough enough to unlike Bischoff. Piper really does come off as a tough guy here and this really did feel big. The problem was he actually had to wrestle.

Piper more or less says he doesn’t care about a count out or a DQ but just winning and here’s Hogan, Liz, Hall, Nash, Syxx and Giant. Bobby thinks Piper is outnumbered. I wonder if it was the 9-1 odds that made him think that. Hogan gets on the mic and lifts Piper’s skirt, showing the scar Piper has from a hip replacement. Why not just hold a big sign above their heads saying OLD GUYS?

Hogan signs the contract which Piper brought with him. For no apparent reason the match was NON title and when Piper won with a sleeper, he didn’t win the title. To say the fans were ticked would be an understatement. Piper jumps Hogan but gets caught. Hogan gets a chair and hits the weakest chair shot ever to the scar. Good to see the NWO is only taking ten minutes on this segment.

The Amazing French Canadians vs. Harlem Heat

The Canadians are more commonly known as the Quebecers from WWF. They’re managed by Colonel Parker and the Heat by Sherri. If the heat win there’s a match between the managers. Something tells me this isn’t going to be that good. Jacques, who was on New Blood Rising, sings the national anthem of Canada. I say sing loosely. He and Booker start. Please let this go fast.

To my great shock, we talk about Piper and Hogan for the opening of the match. Parker is dressed up as a French Legionnaire now and somehow looks even stupider. He stomps on Booker and the comedy is completely unintentional. This match isn’t particularly terrible bit it’s just boring. It’s been about five minutes since the last thing I typed. There just hasn’t been anything to talk about.

The Canadians get the steps and put them in a corner then get a table and lay it across the top rope. They put more steps on top of that and the non-Mountie Canadian does a front flip off. He completely misses and a Harlem Hangover ends him.

Rating: D-. This didn’t get me interested at all. Why am I watching the Quebecers when it’s almost 1997? This was just garbage and boring as heck on all levels. No one cared about Parker vs. Sherri so they went with it for over a year. At least this is over now.

Sherri beats up Parker for like a minute in their “match.” Parker runs away after a cross body. Not even worth an actual introduction.

WCW needs to stop having their production guys on TV so clearly. It just takes something away from the show. Not sure why but it bothers me.

Piper vs. Hogan is called the match of the century and we get a really bad promo for Starrcade.

Someone else might be coming to WCW. I’m not sure who that was but it likely wasn’t anyone special.

Luger comes in and talks about Sting handing him a baseball bat. Luger thinks he’s NWO but doesn’t want to believe it. He had been getting the semi-Superman push lately so he was one of the favorites in the battle royal but there really wasn’t anyone that was clearly going to win.

Cruiserweight Title: Psicosis vs. Dean Malenko

Malenko was just about perfect at this point and would somehow get better the next year, actually winning best technical wrestler both in 96 and 97 from Meltzer as well as winning the PWI 500 which is fan voted I believe. They were building to Malenko vs. Dragon next month in what would more or less be a throwaway match. We start with a lot of technical stuff as you would expect us to.

Bobby picks Malenko to win the battle royal tonight. I’ll set the over under on him changing at 8.5. They’re doing the three broadcast teams tonight. That’s just going to make my head hurt. Malenko has a leglock on and the fans look at something in the audience. After more decent stuff, Psicosis falls off the top rope and slams his head into the railing. Since he isn’t dead, we can continue.

Dean goes into his finishing sequence but the ropes break the Cloverleaf. He destroys the knee and is completely dominating here. We ignore the over the top thing again and Psicosis hits a top rope flip from the top and hits his head again. Good thing he wears that mask or he’d need to get one to cover up the ugly. Then again I’ve seen him sans mask so maybe he needed it all along.

Dean takes a rana from the top for two as this is kind of pedestrian and the crowd isn’t into it at all really. He gets a SWEET reversal out of a suplex into a small package. That looked great. A tombostone gets two for the champion and then he rolls him up for the pin.

Rating: B-. Decent match but they just felt a bit bored out there. They were kind of off by a step or so and it showed badly. It’s definitely good but there was something holding it back from being really good. The crowd didn’t care at all for some reason which is odd as Malenko was usually very popular. Weird but good.

Tag Titles: Nasty Boys vs. Outsiders vs. Faces of Fear

This is the next to last match on the card so at least we’re almost done. Hall and Nash have the belts and come out first for some reason. The Faces of Fear were good for placeholders and jobbers in this division as they were legit tough so it was completely believable. The Nasty Boys continue to not be much at all. The more famous teams brawl to start before the Faces of Fear are here. Ah here they are.

The Outsiders are both jumped by a tag team and it breaks down into a brawl. Knobbs and Barbarian start us off officially and I already don’t like this match. They keep the Outsiders out as long as they can which is about a minute and a half. Hall comes in and beats up Barbarian. Barbarian needs to get up because THIS IS WCW! The problem is that no one cares about Barbarian so they cheer Hall.

We’re six minutes into this so Dusty says it’s been 15. Basically it’s just a bunch of brawling with no particular rhyme or reason. When I get bored I think in song lyrics. So sue me. I love Nash’s side slam. That this is just downright elegant. Something tells me this is going to go on for a LONG time. No one has any particular advantage but Meng gets a suplex on Hall for two and Jimmy FREAKS. It’s absolutely hilarious how much he yells and screams over it. How much caffeine do you think he has in one day?

The Nasty Boys are ordained as the masters of the Clubber. They just stand back and watch the other four fight which is smart when you think about it. This has been like ten minutes of just random brawling. There’s no flow to this match at all and no one has been in any kind of extended trouble. Meng and Knobbs tag in Hall and Nash at the same time so they have to fight. Hall lays down for Nash but the save is made, extending this torture a bit longer. A Megaphone shot and powerbomb on Knobbs end it.

Rating: F+. This was AWFUL. It runs over 15 minutes, nothing of note happens, there’s no story at all and the ending comes from nowhere. When the Faces of Fear have the best performance in a match, that’s not a good sign in the slightest. And now we get the battle royal. Oh yay.

The teams of announcers are Tenay and Dusty, Larry and Lee Marshall and Tony and Bobby. They all give their take and none of them mean a thing. Dusty picks Luger or Konnan.

World War 3

Arn Anderson, Marcus Bagwell, The Barbarian, Chris Benoit, Big Bubba, Jack Boot, Bunkhouse Buck, Ciclope, Disco Inferno, Jim Duggan, Bobby Eaton, Mike Enos, Galaxy, Joe Gomez, Jimmy Graffiti, Johnny Grunge, Juventud Guerrera, Eddy Guerrero, Scott Hall, Prince Iaukea, Ice Train, Mr. JL, Jeff Jarrett, Chris Jericho, Kenny Kaos, Konnan, Lex Luger, Dean Malenko, Steve McMichael, Meng, Rey Misterio, Jr., Hugh Morrus, Kevin Nash, Scott Norton, Pierre Ouelette, Diamond Dallas Page, La Parka, Sgt. Craig Pittman, Jim Powers, Robbie Rage, Stevie Ray, Lord Steven Regal, The Renegade, Scotty Riggs, Roadblock, Jacques Rougeau, Tony Rumble, Mark Starr, Rick Steiner, Ron Studd, Kevin Sullivan, Syxx, Booker T, David Taylor, the Último Dragón, Villaño IV, Michael Wallstreet, Pez Whatley and Alex Wright.

The list is from Wikipedia so blame them for anything weird in there.

The intros take a few minutes since 60 guys have to come out. While they’re coming out, a few notes: Jimmy Graffiti is Jimmy Del Ray of the Heavenly Bodies, Galaxy is a luchador, Jack Bruce is Buddy Lee Parker and Pez Whatley was a medium deal in 86. Benoit is all beaten up and has black eyes and cuts all over his face. The NWO are all in the same ring. Benoit and Sullivan fight before the match officially starts. The Dungeon and the Horsemen jump in and here we go.

I’m not going to even try to list off everyone eliminated here so if I leave someone out don’t be surprised in the slightest. The camera stays on Benoit and Sullivan for about a minute and a half. Oh great we’re doing the triple screen again and you can’t see anything. I think the Dungeon of Doom and the Horsemen are gone. We’ve looked at the three rings maybe 15 seconds combined and almost three minutes at Benoit vs. Sullivan. The NWO is just standing in the corner and Benoit is slammed on Marshall and Larry’s table.

No one of note is out yet. All of the Dungeon and the Horsemen are out, which is about 9 people. Marshall gets knocked out in the big fight so something has gone right tonight at least. Look up HUGE DISASTER in the dictionary and you have this match. Tony Rumble, a career jobber, is gone. Once we get down to ten in each ring they’ll break up that ring. La Parka is gone as is Ciclope. Norton is gone and Pez Whatley is too. Expect a lot of that in this match.

The eliminations start picking up a bit as three no names go out in a row. We get rid of the jobbers for the most part here which is good. Joe Gomez is out. All of the announce teams run down the remaining guys and I don’t even bother paying attention. Every big name is still in it. Giant and Roadblock, an incredibly fat guy go at it. Guess who wins. JL is out. We really need to get this down to one ring for the sake of sanity.

Everybody goes after Big Ron Studd with about a dozen splashes but no one actually tries to put him out. Everyone piles on him but we’re told he has to be thrown out of course. Both Canadians and Duggan are out. Eddie eliminates himself with a plancha to Regal. Bagwell is out as we’re getting some bigger names gone. He and Riggs fight on the floor and they would split tomorrow.

Dave Taylor and Wallstreet are gone. There are 9 left in ring 3 so that ring should be broken up. Scott Steiner is out. There are 8 in ring 1 and 9 in ring 2. Juvy is out. We’re merging into ring 2 thank goodness. Wait is Eddie out or not? Yeah he is for no apparent reason. Everyone is in the same ring so they keep it with three cameras. Blast it go to one camera! Jack Boot is out. You can’t see anything and it’s really complicated because getting more than one angle of the same guys is just really confusing.

Luger tries to get Giant out but the power of fat stops him. Malenko is out and so is Craig Pittman and Booker. We’re still on three cameras because WCW is stupid. Disco is finally out. Bunkhouse Buck is gone. I’d love to see how many people are left. Boy what a basic camera shot would do to help that. A bunch of people go out quickly including Dragon. Tony says there are 13 left. Jericho going out gets us to 12 I think. Just to further the stupidity, the bottom camera goes to a single shot.

Ice Train is out. Ok, everyone is in a circle and FINALLY we go to one camera, 20 minutes into the freaking match. We have Syxx, Hall, Nash, Giant, DDP, Jarrett, Luger, Rey Regal and Eddie left. Eddie was in the final ten last year too I think. Eddie is out and Rey goes after Nash. Giant literally throws Rey out with one hand. Jarrett goes out and we have 7 left. DDP takes us to 6. Regal, Luger, four NWO guys. Make that Luger vs. the NWO.

Giant misses a charge and winds up on the ropes so Luger racks him. Hall goes out. There goes Syxx. Like an idiot he racks Nash and Giant dumps them both to win. Bobby and Tony say it’s the best battle royal ever. Giant would get thrown out of the NWO for asking for a title shot. He would get it at Souled Out, the first NWO PPV. The heels pose to end the show.

Rating: D. This wasn’t very good. The camera work KILLED it in the end. For at least five minutes we were on one ring and you couldn’t see anything at all. These matches were never really very good at all and this was no exception. They’re just big messes the entire time and nothing ever really came of them. When you have so many jobbers it makes you wonder what the point is in having this many. Cut the thing down to like 45 or even 40 and this is WAY better. Still though, the NWO winning was just stupid but then again this is WCW so there you go.

Overall Rating
: D. This wasn’t very good. There’s some ok stuff on it, but that’s as good as it gets. SO much stuff on here is just boring as the majority of the roster was in the battle royal. Things would pick up a lot in the coming year, but the end of 96 was really pretty week. These shows always sucked though and this was absolutely no exception. Don’t watch this one.




Monday Nitro – November 11, 1996 – Roddy Piper’s Music Video

Monday Nitro #61
Date: November 11, 1996
Location: Bayfront Arena, St. Petersburg, Florida
Commentators: Mike Tenay, Larry Zbyszko, Eric Bischoff, Bobby Heenan, Tony Schiavone

There isn’t much to talk about for this show. The NWO is dominating of course and Piper is in this somewhere. WCW is still looking for a leader which they never really would find. Other than that there isn’t much else to talk about here because that’s all that really mattered. The big stuff happens next week. Let’s get to it.

While the announcers talk to open the show, some guy has an envelope in the crowd and security gets rid of him. It’s not acknowledged but it’s almost impossible to miss.

We talk about Jarrett vs. the Horsemen as Jarrett had implied he was a Horseman but Benoit and Mongo didn’t like that. This feud would go on FOREVER and drive me crazy the while time. They air the whole segment from last week which is Jarrett making a rambling football analogy.

Chris Benoit vs. Jeff Jarrett

An inset interview by Kevin Sullivan implies he had Woman before Benoit. Jarrett grabs an arm drag and struts. A drop toehold takes Benoit down and Jarrett walks over his back as we take a break. Back with Benoit pounding away on him and it’s a brawl. Jeff kind of botches a neckbreaker as he loses Benoit swinging through it. Jarrett keeps control but Benoit gets all violent to take over.

Back to the mat in a brawling style as this has been a lot less technical than you would expect from these guys. Jeff starts in on the leg but Benoit hammers away at him. He drapes Jarrett across the top rope and they slug it out over the apron. Jarrett suplexes Benoit to the floor….and here’s Sting to drop Jarrett with the Deathdrop for the DQ.

Rating: C-. Not bad here but they weren’t going for a technical masterpiece this time. The idea was that Benoit was mad about Jarrett talking about being a Horseman so it wasn’t meant to be a big display of amateur skill. The ending hopefully gets rid of Jarrett wanting to be the leader of WCW.

Benoit teases getting in to fight Sting but thinks better of it.

Tony and Larry starting talking about Dr. James Andrews and the envelope guy from earlier runs up to the table and hands Tony the envelope. It’s a tape with a note saying it was a hit in Europe in 92 and something about Piper wanting Hogan. When I mentioned it earlier, I didn’t know something else was coming later from it. That’s rather cool.

The point of Andrews was a video we get about Flair getting his shoulder worked on by him.

WCW Women’s Title Tournament First Round: Zero vs. Malia Hosaka

Zero is Sonny Onoo’s chick in this. She no sells everything and we’re in squash territory here. Razor’s Edge into a powerbomb ends this in about a minute and a half.

DDP is asked about the NWO interfering in his matches. Page says he has nothing to do with them and doesn’t need them. The Outsiders come out and offer him a spot on the team but Page says he’d be #8, so how valuable do they really think he is? Nash talks about politics and how Bischoff is Page’s neighbor. Page says that has nothing to do with the spot he has and that’s about it.

Ciclope vs. Rey Mysterio Jr.

Ciclope has what would be Jericho’s heel music in 1998. Ultimo Dragon is out at ringside with the J Crown Titles. Ciclope takes him to the mat but Rey makes it technical to escape. A springboard rana sends Ciclope to the floor and there’s a big dive on top of it. Another springboard winds up with with Ciclope clotheslining him down. A sunset bomb sends Rey to the floor as Ciclope is doing better than expected.

More dominance by the less famous one here as he hits a DDT off the top (think the Orton elevated DDT) as Dean is watching from the aisle. Psicosis is behind him but I don’t think Dean knows he’s there. Off to a chinlock by Ciclope which is actually a choke. There’s a group of fans in the front row in shirts that spell out NWO 4 Life. A standing Lionsault is caught in something like a tombstone by Ciclope. They go up and Rey ranas him to the floor. Back in the West Coast Pop ends it.

Rating: C+. Pretty nice match here with Rey making the comeback that he got pretty famous doing. Not exactly a classic as they only had about 5 minutes, but for a free TV match, this was pretty much fine. Rey would get back into the title hunt in the next year as it was Dragon who got Dean to end the year.

The NWO fans come out of the entrance ramp before the NWO itself comes out for the Cable Ace Awards. Hall calls TNT a show instead of a network. They take over the announce table (the one at ringside, not the booth) and say they’ll want the awards. Nash brings up winning WarGames and talks about how they want Nitro. That happens in 2-3 weeks apparently.

Hour #2 begins.

Lex Luger vs. Scott Norton

Anderson says that he’ll get Luger at a house show in Baltimore on the 23rd. Norton overpowers him to start but seemingly drops Lex on a backbreaker attempt. Sting is in the rafters/at the top of the crowd. Out to the floor where Luger clotheslines the post which quiets the crowd down a lot. Back in and a flying tackle puts Lex down and we take a break.

Back with Norton draping the arm across the top rope. Norton stomps away on Luger like he’s a bad virus. Lex tries to start a comeback but Norton no sells a lot of clotheslines. Eric talks about the tape that apparently we’re going to see later. Norton goes up but jumps into a clothesline. The Rack ends this clean.

Rating: D+. Just a power match here but nothing of interest at all. Norton was as generic of a power guy as you could ask for but he did a decent job in that role and was around for a lot of years in WCW as a result. Sometimes just being a power monster is good enough for a job and he was here.

Heenan picks Dean Malenko for World War 3.

We see the attack on Jarrett by Sting earlier in the show.

Luger says that he still hasn’t heard from Sting.

Lee Marshall talks about Nitro next week as usual.

Amazing French Canadians vs. Harlem Heat

Colonel Parker is with the Canadians now. This is a rematch from Saturday Night. The Canadians take over to start but the Heat ram them together to take over. Booker hits the axe kick and we cut to the back to see the Nasty Boys trying to get in. Doug Dillinger won’t let them in. They finally go split screen as Sherri gets into the ring. The Nasties leave but see someone we can’t quite see. Sherri and Parker get into a fight for the no contest. I’m not rating it due to how much we didn’t see and how the split screen was mostly her standing around. I’m curious as to who that was the Nasties were talking to.

Upon further review (as in I looked it up on the internet) it was Ed Leslie, or Brutus Beefcake.

Konnan vs. Chris Jericho

Konnan has a belt which I’d assume is a AAA title. We actually get a shot of a hockey card with Jericho’s pappy on it. Jericho gets sent to the floor and Konnan hits the rolling clothesline. Then he hits another inside. Well at least he’s keeping the symmetry. Nick Patrick is referee here so expect something screwy. Konnan hits him in the knee and a powerbomb gets two. Now he works on the arm. The Canadian hits a German on the Cuban and a victory roll gets two. Another bridging move gets two. They hit the ropes and Konnan dropkicks Jericho who brushes into Patrick’s arm which Patrick calls a DQ.

Rating: D. This was a pretty dull match which was there so they could continue Jericho vs. Patrick. I’m not sure when they’re going to finally have Patrick admit he’s NWO but if I remember right it was before the PPV. He definitely was NWO at Souled Out but I thought it was before then.

Miguel Perez Jr. vs. Juventud Guerrera

This starts immediately after we get back from a break. Perez was one of Los Boricuas in WWF and other than this, he had one match on a major WCW show which was back in 1992. Oh my goodness he’s a hairy man. I’m not exactly sure what you want me to say here as this is your standard cruiserweight style match with both guys moving around well but mostly just to pop the crowd. Standing moonsault gets two for Perez. They go to the floor and Perez flattens him with a powerbomb on the floor. Back in a tornado DDT is countered by Juvy but the 450 misses. A rolling victory roll gets the pin for Perez.

Rating: C-. Like I said, this was just like any given match that had two Hispanic cruiserweights in it. I don’t really know what else there is to say about it as it came and went. It wasn’t bad but Perez wasn’t all that impressive. I’d assume this was a tryout match for him so I’m not that shocked that he wasn’t around anymore.

DiBiase thanks Sting for taking Jarrett out. He and Vincent hold up an NWO shirt for Sting whenever he wants it.

Faces of Fear vs. American Males

This is the official main event if you go by what the last match is. We get word that the video is a music video which is going to be enough to explain Piper’s feelings about Hogan. Eric says that he still has had issues with Piper’s management and that he had a good time with Piper and his family in Oregon. Remember that, as it becomes important later. The Faces of Fear pound the Males down before the Males can even get their jackets off. We’re told that Piper vs. Hogan will be as big as Tyson vs. Holyfield. Not hot tag brings in Riggs but Bagwell pulls Barbarian’s feet at the wrong time. Meng kills Riggs with a kick to end it.

Rating: D. This was here to reenforce the idea that the Males aren’t on the same page. You would get a lot more of these short matches that were just around to advance the idea of a single angle back then rather than now. The Males thing would be settled next week, as would a lot of other stuff. Yeah in case you didn’t get it, next week is where a lot of stuff changes, making this week pretty much just a filler before then.

Jimmy Hart wants to know why the Nasty Boys are getting a title shot and not the Faces of Fear. He wants a triangle match. Jimmy would actually get his request.

Here’s the video, which is Piper boxing…and singing? The song appears to be called I’m Your Man. It’s a music video which has Piper training, on the beach, and that’s about it. There’s a still from the music video with Hogan looking up at a marquee at the Hollywood Bowl with Hogan vs. Piper listed as The Ultimate Bout. Really? That’s it?

Here’s the NWO and Hogan in particular. Liz is in a Santa mask. He brags about Santa With Muscles and tells Piper to bring it on. Hulk poses to end the show.

Overall Rating: D. This one really missed for me. Like I said it’s really more of a filler show than anything else, with that music video being something very strange. It’s not a particularly bad song or anything, but it’s just so out of nowhere and strange to see Piper singing. Anyway, nothing of note to see here tonight and that made it one of the weaker shows from Nitro in awhile.

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall




Royal Rumble Count-Up – 2005: It’s A New Day

Royal Rumble 2005
Date: January 30, 2005
Location: Save Mart Center, Fresno, California
Attendance: 12,000
Commentators: Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler, Tazz, Jim Ross

Before I get going, this is the Rumble where the promo was designed after West Side Story. The tag line was “All the rumbling, minus the dancing and singing.” Again I say, WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE THESE PEOPLE ON??? It’s not the scariest part that these people are agreeing to put this on, but that someone THOUGHT THIS UP and GOT PAID TO DO IT. I mean come on now. WEST SIDE STORY???

This is supposed to be one of the biggest fights of the year and it’s WEST FREAKING SIDE STORY??? ANYWAY, the rest of this show looks pretty weak other than the Rumble. Other than another year passing, we’ve seen the rise of Batista and Cena, who are all of a sudden the hottest guys in the company.

HHH is world champion in a stunning revelation and is facing Orton tonight, allegedly in his last title shot. Say it with me: HA! We also have JBL defending against Show and Angle in a match I completely don’t remember. Oh and Edge is back and an Achilles enthusiast now. Let’s get to this.

Our opening video talks about how the legacy of the Rumble continues tonight. That’s fine. We shift to an alley where we have Raw and Smackdown dressed like it’s the 1950s and singing about fighting each other, with one line being: “We’ll step into the ring and reach an understanding. When the smoke has cleared I’ll be the last man standing.” Please, I beg of you now, end my life so I don’t have to listen to this anymore!

Edge vs. Shawn Michaels

Edge has been using Metalingus for 5 years almost? Methinks this might be dubbed. Oddly enough the same band is doing the theme song for the PPV. At Taboo Tuesday, Shawn had gotten voted into the title match instead of Edge, so we get this as a result. Ross calls HBK a first ballot Hall of Famer. Who makes the ballots for that thing? I want that job. My first step: shorten the class size to like 5.

We start off fast, shocking no one. They already reference the 95 Rumble so at least they’re starting it early. To kill some time we list of some of Shawn’s accomplishments because we have to do that at least once a week. The heel heat that Edge is already drawing is really impressive. In a painful looking spot, Edge hits the Edge-O-Matic on the floor. That can’t feel good, which I think is the point. The crowd is hot tonight so that’s good.

Within maybe 30 seconds of each other, Lawler says that Edge has never gotten a world title shot and Ross says if Edge ever starts doing shampoo commercials he’ll be perfect. For those that have no clue why this is interesting, both of those things not only happened, but they both happened in 2002. Yeah I need a life don’t I? After Shawn comes back for a good while we hit the floor where Edge hits a spear.

For the love of mangoes he needs a new finisher. This is kind of an odd choice for an opening match. They’re both big names, so why not save this for a bit later? I guess because with only five matches on the card there’s no other place to put it. Edge tunes up the band but instead throws out the spear for two. Edge counters Sweet Chin Music into a SWEET electric chair that gets two. Edge is having a mental breakdown over this and his facials are still epic.

He counters a sunset flip into that weird kneeling Sharpshooter thing he would do that was always weird looking. The hold looks just completely awful when you look at it for more than three seconds. Shawn is in it over a minute and doesn’t tap which is fairly cool I suppose. Edge finishes with a reversed rollup and uses the ropes for a pin. I like that ending. Edge’s reaction of completely freaking out and screaming I DID IT was just awesome.

Rating: B. It took me awhile to figure out if I liked this match or not. The ending made it for me though as Edge getting the win was a big deal. Shawn definitely didn’t need a win here while this was Edge’s biggest win of his career at this point. The ropes at the end helped a lot too to play up Edge as a heel. This was a very good match overall with the booking being especially good.

We go to the back where Bischoff and Long, who more or less is the same character that he is now. Torrie and Christy are running the number draw as Eddie and Flair come in, both dressed like kings. Eddie starts to reach in but Flair stops him. He dances a bit and says 16 times.

Eddie pulls his hand back and lets Ric go first. That was great to me for some reason. Ric is thrilled with his number and Eddie is upset. Ric brags and then Eddie hugs him. Flair shows the girls his number and realizes Eddie stole his and chases after him. That was a lot better than it sounds.

Heidenreich is in the back, talking about how he hates caskets. Snitsky comes up and says he knows Heidenreich hates caskets, but they like each other and Snitsky has an idea. There are more gay overtones here than there were with Piper and Bob Orton, and that’s saying A LOT.

We recap Taker vs. Heidenreich (Jon, because that takes too long to type) which more or less was Heyman bringing Jon in and them fighting a bit. Jon was supposed to be some big tough fighter or something but he was bland and it bombed badly.

Heidenreich vs. Undertaker

This is a casket match. They actually start with wrestling stuff, shocking the heck out of me. Taker keeps using headlocks to drag Jon to the casket. That’s really smart as it freaks Jon out. Jon is kind of an MMA/street fighter kind of guy but he’s just not that good at it. In an awesome spot, we’re in the corner with Jon throwing punches at Taker. Taker grabs the ropes and throws his legs up to tie up Jon in a triangle choke while still up in the corner. That was awesome.

Tazz points out why Cole is messing up the names of the moves which Cole gets annoyed with. For some reason the fans start booing the heck out of the match. Oh Snitsky is here. They double team Taker with a double suplex and Jon somehow manages to botch that. Do you have any idea how hard it is to mess up a move like that? Kane is in the casket. This was supposed to be Taker’s match at Mania. I’m glad they went with Taker vs. Orton instead aren’t you?

The announcers are of course stunned at someone hiding in a casket, despite Taker having done it about a million times. Jon moves the casket away from the ring for no apparent reason. Taker is back to beat on him some more as we have a Christian Coalition sign in the front row. TNA is already spreading. They’re on PPV at this point so I guess it’s possible, even though Christian was still in WWE at this point so ignore me.

Apparently Taker’s knee is hurt or something like that. Jon pulls back the mat as this match is a train wreck at this point. With Taker laying on the floor, Jon gets a running start with the casket to ram it into Taker. Granted he was almost under the ring so it actually would have been easy to get out of the way so there we go. Jon goes to his finisher: a cobra clutch. Are you starting to see why this guy was such an epic failure?

Naturally as Taker is put in the casket, he gets an arm out. This needs to end, like NOW. Jon uses a Boss Man Slam which Cole says Taker nailed him with. Yeah they botched that call. The crowd really isn’t that interested either. Jon rolls him to the casket and in the EXACT SAME SEQUENCE, Taker gets out. After a REALLY bad chokeslam, the tombstone finally ends this.

Rating: D-. This was just bad on a lot of levels. There were all kinds of blown spots and the Snitsky and Kane run in was completely pointless. What’s the point in booking Taker in these matches if he never loses them? Jon was supposed to be Taker’s arch rival. That’s just funny. At least this finally ended this awful feud so we don’t have to put up with it anymore. This was really bad.

Ad for Mania.

In the back, Long wants Eddie to give back the number. Eddie’s face is priceless on this. Evolution shows up and demands it back, but Eddie gives it up. He’s also made to give back Flair’s wallet which Flair didn’t know about. Why aren’t these guys ever sued? Anyway, Batista says he needs to go get his number and he’ll be right back. HHH says they have to plan something. Batista says it’ll only take a minute and HHH orders him to stay. This doesn’t go well. Well at least they didn’t try to be subtle.

Christian and Tomko are ready to pick their numbers. He’s happy with it until Cena comes in to a huge pop. They have a battle rap that goes nowhere. The best part is when Christian asks Tomko for a beat and Tomko just says no. Cena makes gay jokes and the crowd pops for no apparent reason.

JBL is champion. Angle wants to be champion. Show wants to be champion. If that’s not validation for a triple threat I don’t know what is.

Smackdown World Title: Big Show vs. Kurt Angle vs. JBL

Angle and JBL had a last man standing match on Smackdown apparently so they’re both sore. JBL with the limo was always cool. Show is the odds on favorite apparently. They did a double knock out on Smackdown. This is in the middle of JBL’s reign of doom where he held the belt for almost ten months. They need to get that belt back. It just looks awesome. Apparently there’s a petition to get rid of Teddy Long.

Angle hides on the floor which is a smart idea. They’re broadcasting in New Zealand apparently, so there you go Shadow! Show chops people quite a bit. Show is more or less dominating here. We have steps set up leading to the table which is a bit odd. Show sets for a chokeslam on JBL through it from on top of the steps, but Angle low blows him and a monitor shot puts Show through the table so it’s Angle and JBL at the moment.

The two of them fight it out in the ring to kill some time for Big Show to get back. Geez Show is huge compared to when he was the Giant still. That guy could have carried a company but he had to get all big and fat and slow and it didn’t work at all. Show gets back in and beats both guys up again and looks ready to win, more or less guaranteeing that he won’t. Just as I say that, the others team up to put him down with a combination Clothesline From JBL and chop block.

Show hits a chokeslam but JBL gets the foot on the rope. Show is actually moving with something resembling speed. And there goes the barricade as Show puts JBL through it. We cue up the run ins as Jindrak and Reigns come in to take out Big Show while the Cabinet gets JBL up and gives him a chair.

It isn’t used though as Angle walks into the Clothesline From JBL for the pin to keep the title as the fans boo the heck out of it. They don’t have much to boo about as he got a clean pin. Show got robbed apparently and would get a barbed wire cage match the next month that had a cool ending.

Rating: B. While I hate triple threats, this was pretty good. There was a flow here that you don’t often see in them as they kept one guy down for a good amount of the match in Big Show, which is definitely a good idea given how big he is and that he was the favorite. While it’s no classic, I like this one I think. It’s better than most I’ve seen if nothing else.

Batista won’t get rid of Long via the petition. He threatens Carlito who swallows the apple. In a continuous camera shot we go to the place where numbers are drawn and the GMs are arguing. Apparently Evolution is barred from ringside in the next match and Batista wants to tell HHH. You can see the turn a mile away.

Promo for Mania. It’s the Hollywood one this time.

Ross and Lawler talk about the PPV theme song and the Raw main event for no apparent reason.

We recap it as they had been feuding for months yet they kept going at it anyway. Who would have seen that? Orton allegedly wasn’t allowed to have another shot but of course he’s getting it again here. Orton got cheated out of the title at New Year’s Revolution by Evolution so he gets the shot here. I love how these guys have been feuding for almost five years over a team that existed for all of two years.

Raw World Title: Randy Orton vs. HHH

Orton is the somewhat over face here. He was far more over about 4 months ago but because he was over, HHH was clearly the better choice for the belt than the young, over hotshot that was getting better and more popular every time he got in the ring. Orton goes for an RKO and HHH throws him over the ropes. Why couldn’t it injure him like it did in I think their second last man standing match? Orton used to have this weird style of punches that he’s using here.

I’ve never been able to get into it either. Oh and Orton has a bad knee of course. He swears about 7 times in 5 seconds in a nice touch. Why does something tell me that this will be by far and away the longest match of the night outside of the Rumble? HHH is already using the figure four because he has to be the new Ric Flair in every single way he can be. So we start fast and now HHH has decided to slow things down.

Did I mention that I really hate this match and rivalry? If there’s ever been a guy that has changed so completely over the years, it’s Orton. He’s almost unrecognizable both as far as looks go and the way he works in the ring. It’s a total contrast. Orton is bleeding badly from the lip and looks a lot like Ted DiBiase in that shot. He counters a Pedigree as I just couldn’t care less about this match.

There’s just something that’s always been missing between these two when they got at it and it’s always hurt this match. Granted this is better than most of their future matches, but the problem is already coming clearly here: they want this to be some epic encounter but at the same time, nothing ever comes of it and that’s not a good thing at all. Orton takes a shot to the head and looks like he has a concussion that I think is faked as they keep getting shots of it.

Dang it the referee went down. This match just needs to end and it needs to do so now. It’s hammer time as I’d advise you to make your own jokes. We’ve hit the part of the match that always happens between these two. There comes a point where it’s always about the hammer and not about the wrestling at all. This is where these matches lose it for me as I just freaking don’t care anymore about them.

Why does everything have to follow the same formula of a long match leading up to one moment where the hammer is the key to the whole thing while the referee is down? It always comes to this and it’s just boring to say the least. Also, get some referees that can take a freaking hit. HHH gets the Pedigree and the academic pin to thankfully end this with HHH STILL having the belt.

Rating: D+. This was the same match you’ve seen from these guys a dozen times but with Orton as the face. HHH was clearly going to win and it was to have a title match on the show and nothing more. There was no point to this at all and it just wasn’t interesting whatsoever. HHH and Orton simply can’t have a great match and they need to stop trying like they seem to have done.

Nunzio gets a spot in the Rumble and Angle steals it from him and says it’s his unless Nunzio wants to fight for it. Ok then.

JBL and the Cabinet come into the drawing room celebrating with champagne and Long says there’s a barbed wire cage match at No Way Out. JBL’s face is great here.

Ross and Tazz are doing the commentary for the Rumble again.

Royal Rumble

Eddie is number one and Benoit is number two. Not a bad way to start. Benoit is rocking the teal here. Man Benoit has bad luck as he was first last year. This is borderline chilling when you think about it. Naturally, this is a technical showcase which is what it should be. Daniel Puder, perhaps the most worthless wrestler in a long time, is third. His theme song is Getting Away With Murder. Talk about chilling.

It should be noted that the runner up in the Tough Enough show that Puder won was the Miz. Talk about two different career paths. Geez. Puder gets on the mic and says he’s great. Was there something in the water at that Tough Enough show? Naturally the two former world champions beat the living heck out of him. More or less they just spend the 90 seconds chopping and suplexing the tar out of him as Holly, the rookie hater, is 4th. This should be great.

He gets in and asks if he can have some fun with Puder too. He’s had zero offense. This really is quite funny. Even Holly is over because of this. Think about that for a bit. Holly throws what’s left of him out as Hurricane is 5th. Benoit and Guerrero throw out Holly since he’s useless again to get us down to three. They team up and Eddie tries to throw Benoit out and they’re at it again. Hurricane is out as Kenzo Suzuki, another completely worthless human being is number 6.

This Rumble feels like it hasn’t even gotten started yet and since we’re 1/5 of the way through, that’s not good. Again they double team the other guy until Benoit tries to throw Eddie out. Edge is in at seven. Rey is eighth as nothing at all is happening. Kenzo is out almost immediately. It’s not a good sign at all when you have four world champions in the ring and there’s just nothing going on at all. I mean it’s just boring for some reason.

The Guerrero vs. Mysterio feud was coming soon and it would be Eddie’s next to last major one. Shelton Benjamin, the IC Champion, is number 9. He hadn’t had his big match with Shawn yet to really get him over but it was coming. At this point he was just a guy with untapped potential rather than now as a guy that no one takes seriously with untapped potential. He would finally break out soon after this at MITB at Mania.

Booker takes us to ten as the least successful wrestler out of the 6 in there is Shelton Benjamin. They’re blowing their load too fast here as Tazz messes up by saying that Booker vs. HHH was last year. Benjamin might have gone out but we’re looking at Bischoff who just showed up for no apparent reason. We continue the insane star power in there with Jericho at 11th. He’s WAY over with a huge Y2J chant.

Hey looks here’s Teddy Long as Vince continues the theory of keep pushing the Brand Split until people accept it so you can say it was a good idea. Luther (for admin) Reigns comes in at 12 to break that streak. There are way too many people in there right now. Now we throw every man for himself out the window as Raw and Smackdown get on different sides for four one on one matches that consist of Rey vs. Jericho, Benoit vs. Reigns, Booker vs. Edge and Eddie vs. Shelton.

This is kind of cool but kind of stupid as it’s turning the Rumble into an even bigger gimmick match than it usually is. Muhammad Hassan, the most controversial wrestler perhaps of the millennium, is number 13. Everyone stops cold for this. His manager is more commonly known as Sheik Abdul Bashir in case you didn’t know that. In a humorous bit, everyone jumps him at once to a great pop. Rey gets 619 and then almost everyone picks him up and throws him out as a group. That was great.

Orlando Jordan is number 14 as this needs to stop being so gimmicky. Tazz tries to compare Orlando Jordan to Shelton Benjamin. That’s just amazing. In a TERRIBLE shot, Shelton is choking Jericho with his feet and Jericho has to grab the foot to move it to his throat. It looked terrible. Scotty is number 15, apparently returning from a tumor in his balls or something. Hassan keeps up a tradition of beating up Scotty on his way to the ring. That has to be what, three times?

So for another year, Scotty doesn’t get into the match. Charlie Haas is 16th. How in the world did he get a chick like Jackie Gayda? Booker throws out Luther (for admin) and Orlando with ease. Booker goes for a spinaroonie but Eddie jumps him to put him out. We have Benoit, Guerrero, Shelton, Edge, Jericho, Haas and Rey in there at the moment. In yet another chilling line, Ross says Benoit and Guerrero are still alive.

Rene Dupree and the poodle is seventeenth to insane heat. The World’s Greatest Tag Team reunites for all of a second with Shelton then going for a Stinger Splash, actually called that by Ross, and Edge dumps him. Simon Dean is 18th as the Rumble is legal. While he’s warming up on the floor, Edge throws out Eddie to great heat. Shawn is 19th. He hammers Edge before casually turning around to clothesline Dean out. Eddie gets a huge chant as he leaves.

Ross says that Edge is trying to corner Rey in a corner. Shawn throws out Haas which gets no recognition as Ross thinks it was Dupree. Angle is 20 and he comes in and stays insane since saying going insane wouldn’t make a lot of sense. Shawn misses a superkick but hits the second to put Angle out in a shocker. Angle is MAD. Currently we have Benoit, Edge, Rey, Jericho, Dupree and Shawn in there and they’re joined by the Coach of all people at 21.

This is the thing I hate about rumbles like these: what’s the point of putting him in there? Was there no one else on Raw that could have gone in there at all? I mean you couldn’t throw Lawler in there who at least was a wrestler? Rey almost puts Jericho as Jindrak comes in at 22. Angle runs back in and beats up Shawn and throws him over the top. Shawn is bleeding and apparently is out now, setting up their Mania 21 classic.

Number 23 is Viscera who still has no one that cares about him. At least he’s got a shirt on here. Paul London is 25th and he slides in so fast that he almost goes out the other side. Dupree does that stupid French Tickler dance and Jericho puts him out for it. Cena is 24th to a MASSIVE pop. Tazz likes him way too much.

He was just about to shatter the glass ceiling as he would win the world title at Mania from JBL. He manages to backdrop Viscera to eliminate him. I don’t care if you like Cena or not: he has SCARY strength.

Snitsky is 26th. London jumps him and in a video that’s become popular on the internet for obvious reasons, Gene clotheslines him so hard that London got spun backwards which I don’t think was planned. Kane is 27th, causing Tazz to freak over the way that Ross has to put up with these explosions. As someone that’s been surprised by his pyro, I feel his pain. Kane cleans house of course and there goes Jindrak.

A shirtless Coach tries to jump him but Snitsky saves him. London goes out on a stretcher. Batista is 28th and the pop is epic. They were pushing him to the moon around this time and it clearly was the right decision at the end. There goes Snitsky. Kane continues his tradition of getting beaten up by Batista, this time taking the powerbomb. Batista puts out his third guy by throwing out Jericho.

Christian is 29th, finally with the Just Close Your Eyes theme whose current version I’m completely addicted to. Cena goes off on Edge to show off their future great feud. Cena gets a half F5 half FU to Kane to put him out. Flair is number 30, making the final group Benoit, Edge, Coach, Batista, Cena, Christian, Rey and Flair. So other than Coach, all world champions in some company. Not bad at all. Flair throws Coach to Batista for a spinebuster and Flair throws him out.

There goes Christian. He and Edge were both wearing purple. Benoit and Flair have a chop off. Flair and Batista do the same thing to Benoit that they did to Coach. Flair tries to throw out Batista and it doesn’t go well. Rey and Edge knock Batista down with a double dropkick. Edge puts Flair out and your final four are Edge, Rey, Cena and Batista. Not bad at all. Edge hits a spear on Batista and Cena but Rey avoids it.

619 hits but Rey goes too fast and goes over and a spear puts him on the floor. Batista and Cena put Edge out to get the dream match for the final two. The crowd reacts to this in a great way. This has to headline Mania someday. Cena gets him up for the FU but Batista gets out. Cena is put up for the Batista Bomb but they go out at the same time in an homage to the 94 Rumble. Screw the homage part. It’s the same finish, but to be fair that was 11 years ago so I think it’s ok.

The referees argue over it until Vince comes out. He slides into the ring and hits his legs on the apron, ripping his quads and knees apart. He tries to stand up and just crumples to the ground in agony. Instead of screaming in pain or whatever, he sits on the mat leaning against the ropes and does his thing. Batista clearly is about to lose it. Think about it from his perspective for a minute.

You’re wrestling in the main event of the Royal Rumble, one of the biggest shows on the year and you’re in an angle that’s going to send you to Wrestlemania, and your boss, a billionaire, is sitting on the mat after collapsing and ripping his legs apart, not to mention the epic adrenaline rush you must have just been on. Think about that for a minute or two. Anyway, Fink says Vince ordered the match to be restarted.

This translates into Cena vs. Batista. Shouldn’t that mean Benoit and Guerrero come out again and we do the whole Rumble over? That’s what it sounds like to me. Anyway, Batista throws Cena over and then Cena throws Batista over before this is said which is just stupid, at least from Cena. FU is countered and after a spinebuster, Batista throws him out for the easy win.

Rating: B-. I’ve seen far worse I guess. This match never really seemed to get going for my tastes. Now to be fair while it was clear that Batista was the winner before the match even started, they did have Cena out there as a potential winner along with Edge who was a new main event guy, so at least they tried.

I just couldn’t get into this as there were too many things where the match more or less stopped for something. Also having the huge rush of talent in the first third hurt later parts of the match where those guys could come out. It was good but it could have been a lot better.

Overall Rating: B-. There’s some good stuff and there’s some bad stuff here, but the good is more prolific than the bad here. This was a lot more about changing the guard by launching Batista and Cena into the next level which makes it a bit awkward but that’s ok I think. They were the right choices and this was a great way to do the change. I like the show overall, but the second and fourth matches leave a bit to be desired. Not bad, but don’t expect to be blown away.

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall




Monday Night Raw – January 20, 2003 – Whoever Requested This, Start Running. Now.

Monday Night Raw
Date: January 20, 2003
Location: Dunkin Donuts Center, Providence, Rhode Island
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

This is another request and the last of the six straight Raws I decided to schedule in a row, probably due to head trauma of some sort. This is the night after the Rumble where Brock won and gets the shot at Angle at the PPV. Other than that, HHH is of course still world champion which he would hold for the greater part of eternity. This is a very bad year for WWE so I have no idea why someone would want to see this. Let’s get to it.

Here’s the required MLK video.

We open with Vince yelling at Eric and giving him 30 days to turn Raw around or he’s fired. This was from last week I presume. Bischoff wouldn’t get fired for like two and a half years. It’s implied that Shane will be made GM if Eric can’t do it. Eric has a bombshell for us tonight.

Raw is live, Across The Nation.

Here’s HHH to open things up, following what might have been the worst world title match in recorded history. JR has never seen anyone manhandle HHH like Steiner. If that means you’ve never seen a match that almost made the fans riot over how bad it was, I agree. HHH is too sore to do his pose. His eye is banged up pretty good. He asks the fans who the champ is and says that for those of you that didn’t see the Rumble, he is. Gee the big gold belt on your arm was so inconspicuous too. He went thirty minutes (more like 18 but it felt like 30 hours) and made Steiner look awful.

HHH does however bless us with the statement of there won’t be a rematch. Cue Steiner who says he’s here to finish what he started last night. That title is his and everyone knows it. He wants a rematch tonight. Oh dear. HHH would love to do it again tonight but he has a doctor’s note. Flair says if Steiner wants a match, he can have Batista. Big Dave comes out and Flair jumps Scott. Steiner throws them around and stares down Batista. Evolution was about two weeks away from fully forming so there’s no Orton.

Raw’s Tenth Anniversary is coming. Oh sweet Christmas. We’ll get to that atrocity someday.

Rob Van Dam vs. Jeff Hardy

Rob eliminated him last night to set this up. They do their usual acrobatics to start us off. Jeff gets some kind of jawbreaker and a dropkick to send Van Dam to the floor. He tries to run the railing but gets kicked in the ribs to break that up. Back in Jeff gets two off that leg trap pinning attempt of his. Whisper in the Wind gets two. Van Dam comes back with the rolling fireman’s carry and a middle rope moonsault for two. Five Star misses and Jeff hits a Codebreaker. Swanton gets two so Jeff tries a reverse Twist which is countered into the backslide for the pin by RVD.

Rating: C. Quick match here but it worked pretty well I thought. Jeff got frustrated when the Swanton didn’t work and he let the distraction catch up to him. RVD would be around the upper midcard for awhile and then would get put in a dark match at Mania, probably because he was getting too popular.

Post match, Hardy turns heel (I kid you not) and attacks RVD. This would last for about a month before everyone realized how stupid this was. Oh and Jeff got released. Yeah that happened too. He was released in April and wouldn’t be back for over three years.

Nowitski and Christian are in the back and Christian complains about Edge. Eric comes in and is asked about the surprise later. Eric won’t tell them. Nowitski thinks he knows but won’t tell Christian.

Steiner is in the back when Orton (with a lot of hair) makes fun of him for losing last night. He talks about his shoulder injury and Steiner chokes him.

Chief Morley talks to a referee about the Dudleys. He shows Nick Patrick some footage and wants an honest evaluation on Nick’s performance. The Dudleys cheated but Nick missed it. Nick says he made a mistake so Morely says there needs to be a public apology. Ok then.

We get a clip from last week where Morely (Val Venis) was beaten down by the Dudleys.

Here’s Morely (Worst theme music I’ve heard in YEARS) with Patrick. Nick officially apologizes so Morely says that it’s now time to reverse the decision. Patrick says that’s against company policy and he can’t do that. Morely says that means he has to call out the Dudleys right now. He demands the Dudleys forfeit the titles but D-Von says no, in slightly more colorful language.

Morely demands the belts and threatens them. Bubba says no. Morely says give them to me. Bubba says no. Morely tries to take it so D-Von decks him. Bubba says get the tables but Storm/Regal run in and put Bubba through it. Morely says ring the bell right now, because the titles are on the line.

Raw Tag Titles: Dudley Boys vs. William Regal/Lance Storm

It lasts 10 seconds and there are new champs. Great. Between the segment in the back, the commercial and this, this stuff got about 17 minutes. On the Dudleys, Morely, Regal and Storm. Seriously.

Trish Stratus/Hurricane vs. Victoria/Stevie Richards

Trish was named Diva of the Decade in a total joke recently before this. Victoria is Women’s Champion. The guys start off but it’s off to Victoria quickly. Trish comes in and this is pretty bad so far. Trish fires off some kicks and Victoria’s tights are rapidly coming down. Slingshot legdrop misses and it’s off to the boys again. Richards sets to DDT Trish but Hurricane kicks his head off and Stratusfaction ends Victoria. This went nowhere and was only around to set up the next Women’s Title match.

Eric tries to get ahold of Vince because the big announcement is next. He throws darts at a picture of Shane.

Sean O’Haire says church is stupid. Man this character could have been great, but then they sacrificed him for the sake of Piper, Hogan and Rikishi.

Here’s Eric. Now remember, he has 21 days left to turn Raw around or Shane gets his job. At the tenth anniversary of Raw he saw Austin as Superstar of the Decade and decided to bring him back to Raw because he hadn’t been seen in about six months. Eric talks about Austin walking out and says we’ve never heard his side of it yet. The presses on Raw Magazine have been stopped and Austin has the chance to tell his side of it. That isn’t the bombshell yet though. That would be that Austin is invited to the PPV….which is 34 days from today, which is longer than the 21 he has. I give up.

Booker T/Goldust vs. 3 Minute Warning

JR calls them 3 Count. They have Rico with them. Goldust starts with Jamal. They start off slow but Goldie speeds things up and brings in Booker. Jamal (Umaga) takes his head off with a clothesline but Booker comes back with a superkick. Back to Goldie who works on the arm. Rosey comes in and this is going nowhere. Back to Jamal and Goldie beats both of them up.

Shattered Dreams is broken up by a superkick and the Samoans take over. Goldie fights back again but gets caught in a chinlock. Powerslam gets two for Umaga. Off to Booker who cleans house with kicks but Rico pulls the ropes down to send Booker to the floor. A double DDT by Booker takes the Samoans down (oh give me a break. Learn your stereotypes already!). Everything breaks down and Jamal misses a top rope splash and the axe kick ends him.

Rating: D+. The match was ok, but it just came and went. There’s no story to it that I know of and it didn’t wasn’t anything great. That being said, I’ve seen worse and it could have been worse. The match was pretty pointless though, which was a bad trend around this time.

We recap the Jericho/Shawn thing last night. Jericho was #2 and cheated to eliminate Shawn, #1. Jericho eliminated 6 people until Shawn came back, jumped Jericho, and Test eliminated him.

Chris Jericho vs. Test

Stacy looks great at least. Jericho rants a bit before match about Shawn and all that jazz. Test is your good guy here and he hammers Test down to start with the power stuff. Jericho takes over and beats him down but Test avoids a charge in the corner to send Jericho’s shoulder into the post. Tilt-a-whirl and full nelson slams get two. Big boot misses and Jericho gets sent to the floor. Pumphandle slam out there is countered and Test goes shoulder first into the post. Jericho gets a chair but hits the post and Stacy. The match is stopped.

Rating: D. The match was just there for the finish which would somehow lead to a Test heel turn if my memory serves me right. Anyway, Jericho would get Shawn at Mania in a great match so that’s really all you can ask for. This wasn’t much though, which I mostly blame on Test and his lack of anything of note after about 2001.

They do the LONG ride to the back for Stacy with the terrified voices and there’s even a commercial in between. Test is crying. Oh boy.

From earlier today, Al Snow hypes the Tough Enough 3 finale this week. You can vote for one to be eliminated! The winners would be Matt Cappotelli and John Hennigan (Morrison). Matt was better.

We’re back and Stacy is STILL down. It’s been about ten minutes of her being taken out after a five minute match. Remember that this is after the 18 minute tag title thing earlier.

Flair fires up Batista.

Tommy Dreamer vs. D’Lo Brown

This is a Singapore Cane match. Dreamer is in a Shawn Michael shirt for no apparent reason. Teddy Long comes out with Brown and talks about racism. He rants about how Brown is in this match because he’s black and Dreamer was in the Rumble last night because he’s right. Dreamer hits him to start but breaks his cane against the post. Brown takes over and hits him in the back with the cane while shouting 400 years. Oh this is just painful. Tommy hits him with the stick but jumps into a stick show and Low Down for the pin.

Rating: F. Let me give you a little preview of what this would turn into. Teddy would form the group Thuggin N Buggin Enterprises and add Rodney Mack, Jazz, Mark Henry and Christopher Nowitski. Mack would issue, and I quote, Five Minute White Boy Challenges, where any white boy had five minutes to beat him. Goldberg took him up on one. Just guess how well this went over.

Nathan Jones is coming.

Batista vs. Scott Steiner

They ram into the ropes but neither can get control. Steiner hits a belly to belly….and here’s Orton for the DQ. This might have lasted 90 seconds.

The soon to be Evolution destroys Steiner to end the show.

Overall Rating: R. As in revoked, which is what has happened to the requesting privileges of whomever asked me to do this thing. I knew Raw from 2003 was bad, but OH MY GOODNESS this was an abomination. We had 18 minutes spent on Sean Freaking Morely, HHH and Steiner talking, and then 12 minutes on Stacy Keibler being taken out. And somehow, this year WOULD GET WORSE. Just horrible all around.

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall




Monday Night Raw 15th Anniversary Special

Monday Night Raw
Date: December 10, 2007
Location: Harbor Yard Arena, Bridgeport, Connecticut
Attendance: 7,000
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler

Another request here as WWE celebrates the fifteenth anniversary of Raw, somehow holding it a month before the fifteen year mark but whatever. This is a nostalgia show with some wrestling thrown in, which is my kind of Raw. This is one of the few shows I’ve been requested to do that I distinctly remember watching. Let’s get to it.

This is a three hour show by the way.

The opening video is a montage of all of the openings the show has had over the years. I can’t wait to get to some of those older shows. I’m 99% sure the theme was To Be Loved by Papa Roach at this point. And I’m right.

Here’s Vince to open things up. Oh and his kids are with him. Steph always looked great in business suits. The one thing you can never take away from Vince: when you hear him talking about his product, you can hear the indisputable love that he has for it. This man loves what he does and there’s no arguing it. Tonight there’s going to be a McMahon family portrait. Except for Linda because she isn’t here.

Vince introduces his kids as former Hardcore/European/Women’s Champions. The photographer comes in but here’s Hornswoggle to be in the portrait also. He basically humps Vince’s leg so Vince instructs Shane to get him off Vince’s leg. Vince says there’s no question that his kids are waiting for him to die. He says he loves his taller kids and kind of loves Horny. They get ready to take the picture, and here’s HHH.

HHH says the people are smart and he should be part of the family. It’s almost like he could be Vince’s son. “Sup Steph?” This is about a family portrait, and family is about those you love. Or have loved. Now in Vince’s case, that could mean a lot of people. HHH brings out some of the people that Vince has loved. Representing the current crop of Divas that he’s “loved”: Melina. Vince says he didn’t sleep with her. “Whatever Clinton.” Representing the past: Sunny. Not bad. Horny hugs her and guess what his face goes between.

Up next: the current Diva……MAE YOUNG??? After they finally control her, Vince has to try to explain these things. Vince says it was at Moolah’s funeral and he was very drunk. “I mean….I dusted the cobwebs off and….” That’s enough for Shane. HHH: “There goes the money.” Vince tries to explain it to Stephanie and says he was thinking of her mom at the time. The look on Steph’s face here cracked me up.

Oh but HHH isn’t done. These are the weird ones. He calls out any WWE employee that has been mistaken for a woman that Vince has attempted to love. Vince looks terrified. Here they come, of course to Stand Back. We have…..THE FINK??? Also Big Dick Johnson, Bastian Booger, Patterson and Brisco (I’m not going anywhere near that one) and Abe Knuckleball Schwartz (baseball character whose identity I’ll reveal in a second).

HHH goes over the people that came down here. Patterson doesn’t surprise him. When he gets to Schwartz, “I guess the Brooklyn Brawler was busy tonight.” Stephanie sums up Vince as well as anything else can: “Dad, you’ve got serious problems.” But now it’s her turn to embarrass the family. She kisses HHH and Vince’s eyes bug out. HHH is like yeah, she went there. “Alright Steph. See you at home. Uh….uh….I mean your brother’s a gnome!” Vince in his Mr. McMahon evil voice: “I HATE YOU!”

Horny is sad and HHH says he wishes there was someone that could make it all better with the sound of his music. Cue THE GODFATHER as Horny gets to ride the Ho Train! JR: “Even Patterson looks happy!” This is what I love about anniversary shows: you get stuff like this that you only get like once every five years, and I’m not even a Godfather fan. This was one of the funniest opening segments I can ever remember. Just great.

Later tonight, Vince is going to announce the greatest star in Raw history. If you don’t know who that is, go read a book or something.

Intercontinental Title: Carlito vs. Jeff Hardy

Jeff is defending. Oh and this is a ladder match. Jeff has a match with HHH on Sunday for the #1 contender spot. This is a go home show apparently. Carlito immediately goes for a ladder and blasts Jeff in the face with it. Jeff counters a climbing attempt with a Twist attempt but Carlito takes him down with a clothesline. Carlito charges but Jeff throws the ladder at him to shift control again.

They to the ladder bridge from the ring to the apron and it spears Jeff against the railing. Jeff knocks Carlito off the apron into the ladder with a crash. Here’s a fresh ladder and Hardy climbs but Carlito pulls a Shelton and springboards onto the ladder. A sunset bomb kills Jeff and both guys are down as we take a break. Back with Jeff missing the jump over the ladder legdrop.

Carlito works on the leg and moves the ladder to the middle of the ring. He crushes the leg between the ladder and brings in a second one. After slamming Jeff onto a ladder it’s time to climb but since it’s a ladder match, Carlito climbs slowly and Jeff pops up for a save. A chop block slows Jeff down but Carlito gets backdropped into the ladder. Swanton kind of almost hits so Jeff loads up a ladder for a Twist but Carlito counters into a Backstabber, which means just slamming his back into the ladder. They both climb, Jeff knocks him off and wins. Quick ending.

Rating: B-. This was perfectly fine. It’s not exactly a classic or anything, but considering this was a totally free ladder match, it’s really hard to complain. Both guys know how to use the ladders so this was a solid effort and a good way to get the crowd into the wrestling part of the show. Solid stuff.

Shawn says he was on the first Raw and he has no idea who he defended the IC Title against on the first Raw. He does however remember last week where there was a bunch of Shawn imposters and a Marty Jannetty imposter. Tonight, Kennedy gets the real Marty, who pops up for a second. Shawn makes fun of Kennedy’s catchphrase.

Here are some shocking moments, only some of which are shocking, such as 1-2-3 Kid beating Razor and the Tyson thing. Cena FU-ing Kevin Federline, not so much. There’s a kiss montage too. Plus some chair shots, fire, Val Venis and various other things. It ends with Vince being blown up. Honestly when he went out to the limo, I said that the limo was going to blow up.

Santino and his way too hot for him girlfriend Christy issues an open challenge.

Santino Marella vs. Rob Van Dam

40 seconds, Five Star ends it. This was a legit surprise. Other than a one off appearance in the 09 Rumble, he hasn’t been seen in WWE since that I can remember.

Evolution is having a reunion tonight. We get a video of their highlights.

Actually it’s right now. Here’s Flair, then HHH, Batista and finally Orton. Orton is the only heel here so he doesn’t want in. Batista is Smackdown Champion at this point. Orton is Raw Champion. He says Evolution wants to ride his coattails, and the last time he was in there he got beaten up. We get a clip of it too. Orton wants to be remembered as part of Rated RKO, and he brings out Edge. Flair wants to fight so Orton brings out Umaga and let’s have a six man.

Rated RKO/Umaga vs. Evolution

JR calls this the ultimate tag team explosion. Not quite but whatever. Joined in progress after a break with Flair coming in to face the freshly in Edge. Flair is in the whole “lose and you’re fired” period, but they’ve amended it to say that it’s only a singles loss that counts. Off to Umaga for a nerve hold and it’s Orton in again. Flair avoids a dropkick and there’s a tag to Batista. Everything breaks down and Edge takes a Bossman Slam. HHH and Batista hit stereo spinebusters on Rated RKO. Umaga comes in and shoves the referee for a DQ.

Rating: D+. This was nothing of note but it wasn’t supposed to be. The wrestling here isn’t the point and it would be a mistake to treat it as one. This was about a quick Evolution reunion when most of them were still popular so it’s hard to complain about it. It’s not like 2003 where they were ALL you saw on Raw.

Rated RKO runs so Umaga gets beaten down.

More flashbacks, this time mainly involving cars and vehicles. To give you an idea of how bad the tenth anniversary was, the Austin beer truck thing was rated the #1 moment in the history of Raw. Let that sink in for a moment.

Horny bothers various women in the back like I think Molly (looking GOOD) and Mickie (looking GREAT). Regal comes in to save them so tonight it’s Horny vs. Khali. Oh and Finlay isn’t here tonight.

Hornswoggle vs. Great Khali

Since murder isn’t exactly PG, Hulk Hogan returns (in black to promote his new show American Gladiators) and saves him. It’s nostalgia abounding as Hogan beats up the monster (but doesn’t slam him) and runs him off. Khali got some shots in to make things interesting at least. I’m an old Hulkamaniac at heart so this has to make me smile a little. Hogan praises WWE and plugs American Gladiators, which I actually liked. This was fine.

More Flashbacks: D-X’s Greatest Hits. Ok they deserve their own segment, but this is old and new when only the old are needed.

Another Flashback:

Mr. Socko debuts. Austin pops up as a nurse and beats up Vince in the hospital bed. Austin anally raping Vince with an IV is kind of awesome.

15th Anniversary Battle Royal

THE FINK does the intros. We’ve got Al Snow, Bart Gunn (man, where did they drag him out of?), DOINK THE CLOWN, Repo Man, Steve Blackman (in far better shape than he ever was when he was a regular), Pete Gas of the Mean Street Posse, BOB FREAKING BACKLUND (58 years old here and looking to be in better shape than most of the roster), Gangrel, Goon, Skinner, IRS, Flash Funk, Scotty 2 Hotty, Jim Neidhart, Sgt. Slaughter and Gillberg, who gets a full entrance with guards and pyro sticks and canned chants. That’s AWESOME. This is supposed to be a 15 man battle royal but there are 16 in it. Eh who cares?

Gillberg is ganged up on and tossed immediately. Backlund is out quickly and the point of this isn’t who wins but is just for fun. A Head shot by Snow puts Doink out. Same for Gangrel. HEAD CHEESE EXPLODES!!! Skinner is called a fabulous one (haha) and there go Bart, Flash and Blackman. Repo Man puts Goon out and Skinner puts Repo out. Final Four are Slaughter, IRS, Skinner and Scotty. IRS gets his briefcase but gets it knocked into his face so we can see the Worm. Skinner puts Scotty out but walks into the Cobra Clutch. Slaughter dumps Skinner but IRS dumps Slaughter in the same ending from X7’s Gimmick Battle Royal.

BUT WAIT! Here’s Ted DiBiase, who is officially in the battle royal also. However, he says that IRS has his price so IRS dives over the top, making DiBiase the winner! And that my friends, is why Ted DiBiase is better than your favorite heel. We even get the evil laugh! The match isn’t worth rating because that’s not the point. The ending made me smile a lot though.

Here’s a Flashback series on slaps. Linda slapping Steph is still great. As is Stephanie slapping Debra, but only because her chest looked GREAT in that blue halter top.

Here’s Eric Bischoff who starts to cry. Oh wait he’s lying and he’s tired of seeing the same stuff year after year. He reinvented wrestling and Vince stole his ideas. Eric demands applause so here’s the freshly returned Jericho to SAVE US. Yeah I know the joke is played already. Eric brings up the firing of Jericho about two years ago here on Raw. Jericho will never forget that but Jericho needed it because he was burned out. He’ll win on Sunday and he makes fun of Bischoff’s haircut. Eric makes fun of SAVE US and says Jericho should just forfeit. Jericho rhymes a bit and lays Bischoff out. Orton runs in and gets put in the Walls.

Raw Tag Titles: Hardcore Holly/Cody Rhodes vs. Lance Cade/Trevor Murdoch

Dusty is out here too so you know this is going to be a title change. Cody’s team is challenging. Cade and Cody start us off as Dusty is at home talking a lot. He really was good at what he did and the one biggest thing about him: you can never say he was boring. He paid attention and had insight about EVERYTHING. Cody is very much a rookie here and after he gets beaten up for awhile it’s a double tag and Holly cleans house. Everything breaks down and the Alabama Slam gives Rhodes and Holly the titles. Dusty comes in to celebrate with them.

Flashbacks of celebrities in Raw history.

Flashbacks of the Divas. Man there are some good looking women on Raw’s history.

Jillian is here to plug her Christmas album, and for the life of me that became a hit in England. She starts a VERY slow rendition of the 12 Days of Christmas but here’s Trish to break that up. Trish says the album is really bad. Violence is teased but Lita comes out looking nice and thick instead of the freaky rail she used to be. She gets in Trish’s face but they take out Jillian because she won’t shut up. I said this back then and I’ll say it now: Trish vs. Lita is one of the best rivalries ever and seeing them staring each other down again was awesome.

Another flashback, this one on “comedy”. Your mileage may vary here, but stuff like Bang 3:16, Edge and Christian doing whatever and Angle/Austin are always great. Things that aren’t so great: the midgets and impressions. Also the Kevin Federline stuff. This is the third appearance of that on this show (yet Cena isn’t here).

HOWEVER, there is one bit on here that I watch when I’m feeling blue. Rock had just won I think his fifth title. Foley asked him how it felt to be champion again. Rock: “Well Mick….” Foley: “IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW IT FEELS!” Foley then takes a lap around the ring, pumping his fist and chanting his own name. Even Rock cracks up. Look it up. Youtube Mick Foley Gets The Rock. It’s great.

More comedy, again hit and miss.

Another Flashback, this one on weddings, including Lita and Kane. Lita is in the back and runs into Kane. They have one of my favorite Raw lines ever. Kane: “So uh….you seen any good movies lately?” It’s so awkward that it’s hilarious and Ron Simmons comes up to cap it off perfectly.

We run down the Armageddon card.

Mr. Kennedy vs. Marty Jannetty

Kennedy was feuding with Shawn so he brought Jannetty in to get an idea of what Shawn would be like. Marty looks awful. He takes Kennedy down and the fans don’t seem that interested. Kennedy goes after the knee and hooks a half crab. A dragon screw leg whip gets two. Marty comes back with an enziguri and some rights. Kennedy walks into a Rocker Dropper but Marty goes up instead of covering. He gets taken down but grabs a sunset flip for two. Mic Check (doesn’t have a name yet) ends this.

Rating: C-. Eh this was what it was. It wasn’t going to be anything of note and I really don’t get why they bring Jannetty out every few years for this. I mean, Shawn has other friends over the years and the Rockers hadn’t teamed together regularly in what, fifteen years at this point? It doesn’t quite add up.

Shawn comes out for the save but gets caught so here’s HHH for the other save. HHH hands Shawn a DX shirt and it’s another reunion.

Here’s Vince to announce the biggest star in Raw history. And of course it’s him. He goes into an acceptance speech but Mankind comes out to protest. Now I’ve heard rumors that this wasn’t really him. He’s in the mask and doesn’t talk so who knows. Vince says Foley can leave so he gets the Claw. Mankind poses and here’s Taker. He chokeslams Vince then disappears.

And here’s Austin. It just wouldn’t be an anniversary without him. Austin does his usual schtick and gets a few beers. Vince is more or less dead in the ring. Austin lays down next to him and then scoots away because it was making him feel dirty. One of the beers pours out so Austin gets up and picks Vince up. After the toast, of course Vince gets a Stunner. Austin declares the greatest superstars of Raw to be the fans and brings out the locker room for a beer bash. Punk of course has a Pepsi. Regal, a recovering alcoholic, has a Coke. Vince finally wakes up so Austin punches him for old times’ sake to end this.

Overall Rating: B. This was a very entertaining show that I had a very good time with. If you were around for the Attitude Era and liked it, you’ll like this show. The wrestling was pretty limited here (although the ladder match was good) but if you were watching it for that, you missed the point entirely. This was a very fun show and I really enjoyed it. Check it out.

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall




Royal Rumble Count-Up – 2004: Quite The Final Four

Royal Rumble 2004
Date: January 25, 2004
Location: Wachovia Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Attendance: 17,289
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jerry Lawler, Tazz, Michael Cole, Jonathan Coachman

So another year has passed and the only real change is that Evolution is running wild on Raw. Yeah, HHH is champion again, Benoit is still having great matches but getting nowhere with them, Brock still owns everything he’s in, and the Dudleys are still the only tag team worth anything. The levels of similarity between the two shows astounds me. Oh and Cena is now a face. Yeah that’s all I’ve got.

This really was a show that doesn’t mean much in the history of the company because nothing much happens. Shawn and HHH are going to have another classic in their endless series and Lesnar is having a match with Hardcore Holly of all people. Let that sink in for a bit before we start this up.

Naturally the opening video is about Shawn and HHH, because, you know, they’re more important than the match the show is named after. The whole thing is about roads which is fine but geez, could you be a bit more subtle next time? I didn’t really get what you were trying to talk about here.

Raw Tag Titles: Dudley Boys vs. Ric Flair/Batista

This is in the Evolution period so Flair thinks he’s a Horseman still I guess. It’s a tables match so at least we don’t have to worry about it lasting long. Evolution came in as champions here after having the belts stolen from them a month before. Oh and they’re 17 time champions here. They put Coach through a table on Raw in a pointless segment. Oh blast it they gave Batista a mic. Who thought this was a good idea at this point in his career?

The fight is on in the aisle, and I think Flair is on the verge of bleeding already. In a cool spot, Bubba is on one side of the ring and gets a table out. He slides it across the ring and it hits Batista on the floor on the other side of the ring. That was impressive. Seeing Dave with a lot of hair is just amusing. Flair is told to suck on that by Bubba which is an image I never want again. We go to a completely ranomd shot over the shoulders of the announcers. What the heck was the point of that?

The Dudleys hit that reverse neckbreaker that is always called a 3D by idiotic fans in the crowd. Shockingly, Flair is slammed off the top rope. Coach leaves for no apparent reason as Flair is about to get a 3D. He almost gets the What’s Up but Flair stops it. Batista puts D-Von through a table to end it. That was incredibly pointless.

Rating: C. It’s four and a half minutes long. How much of a rating could I actually give this thing? It was a way to give Evolution a bit more credibility as champions and that’s what it did. They lost them to RVD and Booker a few weeks later but whatever. This was fine for an opener I guess.

We go to the back and I have to take a break for a minute as Josh Matthews looks like a cross between Vanilla Ice and…something not associated with Vanilla Ice. I mean it’s just hilarious. Anyway, he’s with Cena who is a face now but he still raps. RVD interrupts him in a bizarre cameo. Cena was getting there but he wasn’t quite there yet.

We see a chair that’s reserved for Foley. This is in the middle of the angle where he was afraid of Orton and refused to fight him.

Cruiserweight Title: Rey Mysterio vs. Jamie Noble

Talk about two careers that have gone in completely opposite directions since this. Rey comes out first for no apparent reason. If Noble’s music was any more generic it would be off an American Idol winner’s CD. Oh yeah and Nidia, Noble’s girlfriend, has been blinded by Tajiri. It’s a fake, and if that surprises you I have to wonder why you’re here. Apparently Noble has been using her to help him win matches without her knowing about it.

Cole gets in the flat out stupid line of “Nidia looking on”. Cole, you are a plague upon mankind. Even Tazz calls him out for saying something stupid. How bad does that tell you he is? Nidia trips Noble “by mistake” and Rey gets a 619 and drops the dime for the win. Yeah that’s really all that happened. It’s a 3 minute match.

Rating: N/A. There’s more or less nothing here to grade so I can’t do it justice. The angle was stupid though and this is kind of insulting to the crusierweights. They give them 3 minutes for their title? Seriously, what’s the point in even having them out there? This was stupid and is a great example of why this division is considered a freaking joke.

So Chavo can’t stand Eddie because he’s jealous or something stupid like that.

Eddie Guerrero vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

I put Jr. because Chavo Sr. is with Chavo here. This was right before Eddie turned into the mega face and would become the most overrated wrestler in recent history. Yes Eddie was great, but you would think he was the second coming of Lou Thesz based on how much praise he got all of a sudden. He’s mad over here but still it’s annoying considering they’re still using his name in angles now.

Now in case you didn’t know that they grew up more or less as brothers, they’re going to let you know for the first time in the first two minutes. That should only be mentioned about 15 more times in the match. Oh and apparently Chavo hates Eddie now. I get that we have faces vs. heels, but this pro-Eddie stuff from Cole here is driving me insane. SHUT UP ALREADY. WE GET IT. In a funny spot, Chavo does Eddie’s dance thing and Eddie just flips him off. That was great.

Oh Eddie refuses to punch too. Chavo Sr., who is Eddie’s brother in case you can’t remember the family tree in your head, trips him to give Chavo the advantage. Since Chavo pales in the shadows of Eddie though, that lasts all of a second. Chavo steals Eddie’s sequence of moves, so Eddie follows it up by doing the exact same sequence. This allows for the frog splash to end it. That was just pointless. Eddie follows it up with a long beatdown of both Chavos to fill in some time.

Rating: C+. The wrestling here was quite good, but I still don’t get what was accomplished here. Eddie was just treading water at this point until less than a week later when he was launched into being number one contender for the Smackdown Title in a battle royal. This ended this mini feud so I guess that’s the point it served. I never liked Eddie vs. Chavo for some reason, but the wrestling was very solid.

Buy Mick Foley’s Greatest Hits and Misses. No you really should as it’s a cool set.

Benoit is in the back with Josh Matthews but Flair and Evolution interrupt him. If anyone can explain to me logically why Benoit was never made into the next big star of the Horsemen in WCW, I’ll get you a ham sandwich. They talk about Benoit being unable to win the big one, which more or less gives away the ending to the Rumble.

Since apparently I murdered a baby in a past life or something, we recap Bob Holly vs. Lesnar. It’s an even numbered year so it’s time to push him again. Holly fought Lesnar in 2002 and Lesnar messed up a powerbomb and it broke Holly’s neck. That apparently is what it takes for him to get a title shot. Holly kept jumping Brock and trying to hurt him with a full nelson. Yes, Hardcore Holly is getting a title shot at the Royal freaking Rumble. Just take me now.

Smackdown World Title: Brock Lesnar vs. Hardcore Holly

They announce Holly and that this is for the WWE Title and I expect Chimmel to just break up laughing. I mean seriously how could you keep a straight face announcing that? It’s amazing to think that Lesnar would be done with the WWE in three months. Holly jumps him before the match starts so the bell rings while Holly is waiting on Brock to get up. He misses a cross body, meaning that he was in control for all of two seconds of this match.

After that, it’s all Brock. I mean literally, four minutes have passed and Holly has been on defense since then. Tazz and Cole are really trying to make this sound like a legit match. They even say that Holly might be pound for pound the strongest guy in the company. That’s just completely stupid. Hey there’s offense! It’s a head slap and two punches and he’s down again. Also most of this is Brock with Holly on the mat in a hold.

He gets a slightly longer one here, even hitting his finisher, the Alabama Slam (think of a guy going for a sunset flip but not getting over and the guy he’s using it on grabbing his legs and slamming him back down to the mat). Naturally though he doesn’t cover but goes for the stupid submission and since that doesn’t work, the F5 ends this in like 6 minutes.

Rating: D-. This was a squash on PPV for the title. I can get the idea of having a throwaway feud that ends at the Rumble to set up the real feud at Mania, but this was just a waste of time. Serious, HARDCORE HOLLY is the best you can do? You couldn’t throw someone like Cena in there for a quick feud and title match that went 12 minutes or so? Vince loved Holly for some reason and refused to quit pushing him until he finally woke up and fired him.

We’re four matches into a six match card. The longest match so far: Eddie vs. Chavo at eight minutes and three seconds. I know I complain about PPVs being too much like a TV show but this is ridiculous.

HHH and Shawn are getting ready for their title match tonight. Of course it’s seven years in the making despite them feuding extensively since then. Basically this time Shawn had gotten a title shot in his home town and pinned HHH, but his shoulders were down too so HHH kept the belt.

That’s a great match that you should check out which I believe is on the Heartbreak and Triumph DVD. They go through the usual complaining about HHH taking Shawn’s spot after the injury and I want to beat myself with a rock. This highlight package literally goes on for almost four minutes. WE GET IT.

Raw World Title: Shawn Michaels vs. HHH

This is last man standing. From the beginning of the recap package to the bell was about seven and a half minutes. Shawn is finally back to looking like a pro wrestler instead of looking like a tiny man that he was in the Elimination Chamber. What’s the deal with announcers always misusing the word literally? Monsoon said they were literally hanging from the rafters and Lawler says they’re literally beating the heck out of each other. No, not really.

Ross follows that up with a line saying that Michaels made a calculated mistake. I just shake my head and move on. In a shocking turn of events, HHH works on Shawn’s back. Lawler goes on a limb and says that Shawn’s back might be healed SIX YEARS AFTER HE HURT IT. I love how they try to make it sound like Shawn left and then HHH was a big deal the next day. In reality it took about a year for him to get to the big time and another year and the Rock before anyone took him seriously.

Shawn hooks on a figure four and Ross manages to plug the recently released Flair DVD. If anyone has ever been a better or more hardworking salesman than Vince McMahon, I want to meet them and buy something from them. We’re already seeing the problem that exists in every Last Man Standing match: the first fifteen minutes or so mean nothing.

You can go do something else while waiting on that part to end. There will be some decent spots, but it’s simply not going to end during that amount of time. We move to the let’s dodge each other’s finishers which is clichéd but fine I guess.

Shawn goes to the apron and tries a reverse springboard cross body to the floor but eats table in a good looking spot. Since it’s a big match, Shawn is bleeding. I know he emulates Flair but come on now. Hey let’s get a chair since we haven’t had enough violence so far. Naturally Shawn is up in time because we haven’t had the big face comeback yet. In case you can’t tell, I’m not thrilled by this match. It’s ok, but nothing great.

Shawn blocks a Pedigree and slingshots HHH in front of the turnbuckle so HHH can jump to hit the post. Shawn kills him with the chair for an eight or so. Both guys are bleeding. Shawn nips up and the fans are into this if nothing else. He initiates his ending sequence which is just like what Bret Hart would do even though he’s nothing like Bret Hart right?

For the life of me, if Shawn wants to hit a big kick, WHY DOES HE STOMP THE MAT WHILE THE OTHER GUY IS GETTING UP??? That’s just freaking STUPID. Oh come on now. After Shawn gets low blowed, he hooks a sleeper. While it’s psychologically a good move, it’s the best way possible to kill a crowd dead. This match has been 80% punching and chopping.

This match is going on, but all of the clichéd spots like the long double count are just getting annoying. A Pedigree puts Shawn down again. He gets up and since he just took a big finisher he’s able to hit Sweet Chin Music out of nowhere, because you know, that’s perfectly reasonable. This leads to a double count out which gets booed out of the freaking building.

This caused Shawn to be completely ridiculous and consistently demand that he get a title shot and generally coming off like a total whiny little man. This is why Shawn was in the Mania main event, and yes, I think it had a lot to do with HHH making sure that his buddy got to main event ANOTHER Mania and kept him from having to job to Benoit clean, but you’ve heard more than enough rants about that.

Rating: C+. This match felt like it was missing the middle part. It felt like 18 minutes of the feeling out process and then we shifted to the finish for about five minutes. The double count out thing I couldn’t stand but at least they had a plan for these two moving forward.

The problem though is that it’s just Shawn vs. HHH. This feud went on forever and while it’s a big match, it’s been done. That’s the thing: it’s just more of HHH only making his buddy look good instead of just allowing him to lay down for Benoit at Mania like he should have. It’s not bad, but once you think about it the match loses some luster.

We go to a long video package about the Rumble, mainly focusing on Benoit which completely gives away the winner. He’s number one and Goldberg is number 30. Yeah that’s about it.

Austin, Heyman and Bischoff get together. Hilarity ensues.

Brock and Goldberg look at each other. I think Goldberg wants to go get some coffee.

Royal Rumble

As mentioned, Benoit is first and Orton is number 2. Tazz and Ross are doing the commentary tonight and Orton is the IC Champion here. These two would headline Summerslam in about 7 months in a great match which led to Orton’s horribly botched face turn. GEEZ Orton looks different here as he more or less was all clean cut like some college kid. Compare that to what you see now and you’ll be amazed.

I’m not sure if I like this style of the Rumble. I like having bigger names in at the beginning, but they couldn’t have made it clearer that Benoit was winning if they put the WM 20 poster on the mat for this. I like these hard hitting people if nothing else. Henry is 3rd as I think the intervals are two minutes or so. Teddy Long is managing Henry here which means more or less nothing. After about a minute, Tajiri is 4th. I know this because there’s a graphic in the corner that says Tajiri 4th.

He and Benoit do some sweet looking technical stuff. Bradshaw is 5th and somehow he would be world champion in 6 months. He clotheslines everyone but Benoit who pulls him into a crossface. Bradshaw picks him up and tries to dump him but Benoit holds on and pulls Bradshaw out. Rhyno is 6th here as the intervals are actually staying pretty close to accurate here.

Tajiri puts Henry in the Tarantula but Rhyno gores Henry to knock Tajiri out. That’s actually pretty creative and I liked it. Benoit puts Henry out by just running into him a few times to a solid pop. It was bigger last year but we’re not going to speak of that. Oh Henry took some mist according to a replay to cause him to be in the Tarantula. Matt Hardy is seventh. We now have Benoit, Orton, Rhyno and Hardy in there. Hardy is a face here I think. Yeah he’s getting pops.

I just don’t think he means anything as a singles guy, which would date this show as sometime between 2001 and the present. The two successful singles guys and the two lesser so successful singles guys are together. In at eight is Scott Steiner who means more or less nothing at this point. He dominates for the most part with amazingly enough, more suplexes. In an amusing moment, Benoit is just like boy please and starts throwing Steiner around with them.

Ross points out something interesting by saying that no one in this Rumble has won before. Again, that’s the point of an announcer. Lines like that can do a lot as far as elevating a match. Number 9 is MATT FREAKING MORGAN! They know he’s awesome even here where he’s been around all of a few months. Even WWE bills him as 7’0 tall even though he’s about 6’8. He puts Benoit down with a huge power bomb though.

They refer to him as a rookie here so he hasn’t been around long. I know he came out of nowhere at SS 03 and then left around Mania before coming back as Carlito’s bodyguard. Hurricane is tenth. Morgan throws him out in a few seconds and he lands really badly on his leg and might be legit hurt. He almost puts out Hardy who makes a nice save.

Morgan just looks at him while he comes back in which just looks stupid. Booker is 11th and is apparently a favorite to win this? He has a bad rap version of his theme song. He and Steiner go at it and we get a WCW reference. Benoit and Morgan just sounds like a TNA dream match. Ross says that Benoit is still alive somehow. That’s a creepy line. Morgan has shrunk to 6’10 apparently but grows back to 6’11 before Kane is in at 12.

Steiner goes out off camera thanks to Booker. Morgan either has lifts in his shoes or something is weird about his height as he’s almost Kane’s size. They do a smart thing though and spin the camera angles a lot while they’re fighting though. As a recap, we have Benoit, Orton, Rhyno (who gores Hardy as I say that for his first noticeable anything in about 10 minutes), Hardy, Morgan, Booker and Kane.

Of those seven, three would be in TNA within four years. That’s either saying a lot or nothing at all and I’m not sure which. Kane is the only person up as the clock goes down to zero. The lights go out and a gong sounds. To say the crowd pops is an understatement. Kane had buried Taker alive (again) back at Survivor Series. Only in wrestling would that make perfect sense.

That had ended the biker gimmick as Taker would come back as the Dead Man at Mania to face Kane in a glorified squash match. Kane is distracted and Booker puts him out. Spike comes out as number 13 and never gets in the ring. You figure out why not. Rikishi is in at 14 after about a minute of waiting. Benoit puts out Rhyno as Rikishi gets in. Morgan gets a stink face as he must be counting the days to getting to TNA. Tazz mentions that Benoit is hanging in there, which sent a chill up my spine.

Less than 75 seconds later, Renee Dupree is number 15. He actually puts Matt Hardy out with relative ease. That’s surprising if nothing else. Rikishi puts him out a few seconds later. A-Train is in at 16 as he must be about gone from the company at this point. Yeah he would be gone in November after getting hurt in the summer. Benoit puts Morgan out. Orton puts out Booker and Rikishi in about 15 seconds. That’s not bad at all.

Benoit puts out A-Train just as Shelton gets in at number 17. A-Train goes over the ropes and to the floor, and Tazz says that he thinks A-Train is out and I shake my head. Orton puts out Shelton and we’re back to where we started out. Both are down as a guy in a fake afro comes out to introduce Ernest Miller at 18. This was one of the dumbest signings ever as Miller was barely over in WCW so he got hired here for no apparent reason.

Anyway, after dancing badly for a bit, Orton puts him out. In a very funny moment, Benoit tries to throw out Lamont, the guy that did the introduction but as he runs him to the ropes to throw him, just the hair goes off. It’s a lot better than it sounds. Angle is 19th to a HUGE pop. This is kind of a dream trip in there really. Naturally he and Benoit beat the tar out of each other.

Rico, now in his full gay stage, is 20th. Tazz sums him up in one line: you have to be as tough as Rico to wear those pants in the Royal Rumble. Rico was a guy that never got a fair shake as a wrestler. He was chained down by his gimmick and no one could ever take him seriously. If nothing else though, I’ve never heard a single bad thing about him and before and after wrestling he was a police officer in Nevada where he graduated at the top of his class both times.

Like him or not, that’s very impressive. Orton hits an RKO on him and puts him out. As Benoit and Angle beat even more heck out of each other, Test is 21st as no one cares. Main reason no one cares is he’s not here. Orton hits an RKO on Angle as we cut to the back where Test is out cold. Austin, who was sheriff or something like that at the time yells at someone we can’t see that they’re now number 21 as it was apparently the guys that did this to Test.

Austin sounds like Christian Bale from Dark Knight. It’s Mick Foley as the roof is completely gone after being blown off by his music. This was during an angle where Foley was afraid of Orton and refused to fight him on Raw back in December so he left the company. Ross says he knew Foley wasn’t a coward. The look on Orton’s face is absolutely perfect as he’s scared to death. Foley beats the living tar out of him and a Cactus Clothesline puts both of them out.

Foley beats on him even more on the floor as Christian is number 22. Oddly enough ECW is on at the moment and he’s in the main event (shocking isn’t it?). Orton is just getting killed by Foley this whole time. Scratch that he’s coming back with a SICK chair shot to Mick’s head. They fight up the entry way as they set up Rock and Foley vs. Evolution at Mania and the EPIC hardcore match at Backlash.

If you haven’t seen the Backlash match, go get Mick Foley’s Greatest Hits and Misses and check that match out. It’s a great DVD too. The final disc has four Foley matches on it where you can pick between original commentary or Foley and Joey Styles which is a cool idea. Nunzio is 23rd but he walks into Socko on the ramp. We haven’t seen anything in the ring for about a minute and a half at this point, but in this case it’s ok. The crowd is WAY into this.

Orton runs away and Foley staggers after him. Nunzio (Little Guido for you ECW fans) sits at ringside while everyone else fights in the ring. Tazz makes fun of Christian wearing pink tights. Ross says some great Canadians have worn pink tights which shuts Tazz up FAST. Big Show is in at 24. He’s finally back in normal looking tights which I couldn’t be happier about. Again, Ross says something very insightful: Yoko and Studd were both #24 when they won.

See, again, that’s something no one would ever pick up on and it offers something to think about. That’s the sign of a great announcer. Jericho is number 25. We have far too high of a Canadian to American ratio in there. Haas is in at 26th. Nunzio is still sitting outside. Jericho puts out Christian for the second year in a row apparently. Billy Gunn is 27th and is apparently returning.

Why in the world is he getting a pop? I just don’t get it. He gets a Fameasser on both Angle and Show which Ross points out is a bad idea because you have to have Show up to put him out. Ross stays on fire tonight by pointing out that number 27 has produced the most winners in history. Even Tazz says Ross is on a roll tonight.

Cena is number 28 to a solid pop. He would win his first title, the US, at Mania over Show who he’s feuding with at the moment. He puts Nunzio into the ring but gets jumped by the Italian and Show. Show slaps Nunzio on the back and Tazz says that’ll shake your hips for you. Where in the world did that come from??? RVD is 29th and we know Goldberg is 30th. Cena hits the FU on Angle.

Your final grouping as Goldberg comes in: Benoit, Haas, Nunzio, Angle, Show, Jericho, Gunn, Cena, RVD and Goldberg. That’s a pretty sweet grouping when you think about it. Of the ten in there, you have four former world champions and three that would be champion in the future. That’s not bad at all. Goldberg destroys everyone in sight and throws out Haas. There goes Gunn. Nunzio is out. He sets to Jackhammer Big Show and here’s Brock to mess that up.

He nails Goldberg and then Angle throws him out during the stare down. If either guy was staying at Mania, that could have been EPIC. We’ve got six now. Show gets the Andre treatment which doesn’t work at all. Everyone keeps beating on him and then they realize they screwed up because he’s out cold and weighs 500lbs.

Ok, I get that he’s dead weight, but Angle has freakish strength and RVD holds a world record for a dead lift while doing the splits, yet five grown professional wrestlers can’t get him up? Show just goes insane and puts out Cena and RVD. Jericho shows his intelligence and gets the Walls of Jericho on Show. Show puts him out with one arm to just show off. The final three are Angle, Benoit and Show.

If nothing else they’ve saved the best guys for the ending. Angle hits an Angle Slam on Show which never stops being impressive. Benoit takes one that’s close to it but not quite. Show gets a chokeslam but Angle rolls through it into an ankle lock and Show taps again.

In an awesome looking sequence, Show is in the ankle lock and climbs up the ropes, then he kind of rolls forward over them to pull Angle out, because Angle couldn’t you know, LET GO OF HIS FREAKING LEG or something like that. Benoit rolls through a chokeslam with the most basic counter there is to it and continues his streak of being the only guy in history to consistently work on the right arm of an opponent.

Show taps again. That’s a nice bit of continuity there as all three submission guys manages to get him to tap but it means nothing. I like it though as it shows they’ve at least thought this out a bit. It’s so simply yet it ties the match together and shows that while Jericho and Angle are both great, they’re not as great as Benoit as only he gets rid of Show in the end. That’s a nice little touch and it works so well.

Show is in that thing for at least thirty seconds too so that has to hurt. Show breaks it with a similar counter to what Bradshaw did earlier. Benoit breaks the hour mark. Show, with his handlebar mustache, gets Benoit in a gorilla press but Benoit shifts into a chancers (DDT grip with the arm held also) to pull Show over the ropes and in a cool looking finish gets enough leverage to get him out.

That’s a perfect ending as Benoit didn’t use power or some contrived move. He did what he does best: got a hold on Show and used leverage to get him out. That’s textbook Benoit and it’s the only way he should have won this. The pop is great and for smarks everywhere, this was a perfect moment.

Rating: A. This was a great Rumble for multiple reasons. First of all, Benoit wasn’t focused on until the very end, which made it far less obvious that he was going to be the winner. He blended into the background, which helped him out a lot here. In the 92 Rumble where Flair more or less went wire to wire, he was the focus of the match. Here, Benoit was mentioned but it was far more casual. Second, the ending 6 or so were awesome.

There were a bunch of people there that could have won. Angle winning wouldn’t have surprised anyone I don’t think, and Show is always a legit contender in something like this. This match went very well and while it may not have been great, it was very fun. That’s the best way to describe it: fun.

Overall Rating: C+. The Rumble is the only thing here worth much.  Look back at the show and see what else you have. The tag title match is a squash, the Cruiserweight title match is 3 minutes long, Eddie vs. Chavo is ok at best, Hardcore Holly got a title shot, and Shawn and HHH had a decent but far from great match with a bad ending. Then you have a great Rumble. That’s not a lot to go on really.

The part that kills it for me is HHH and Shawn being the only other match longer than eight and a half minutes. Seriously, you couldn’t chop off 6 minutes of that and give three each to the first two matches? Overall, the show isn’t much at all, but the Rumble is great.

I won’t really recommend it as a lot of this stuff felt like it was from a 3 hour special or something. This wasn’t much, but the Benoit Rumble win is great stuff. You won’t find a better example of someone being launched into the main event than that right there. Definitely check that out, but other than that take a pass.

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall




Monday Night Raw – June 25, 2001 – Austin And Angle Have Some Celery

Monday Night Raw
Date: June 25, 2001
Location: Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York
Attendance: 13,763
Commentators: Jim Ross, Paul Heyman

Ok so we’re past King of the Ring now and there are a few more developments. Benoit isn’t going to be back for over a year after having the injury angle last night that wrote him off after he hurt his neck in TLC 4. Edge is the new King of the Ring. Booker T has debuted, and Austin is still champion. Tonight something huge (well kind of huge at least) happens, so let’s get to it.

Here’s Vince immediately and he’s not happy. Austin talks about a rumor that said if Benoit or Jericho won the title, they would defect to WCW. Granted that’s not an issue because Austin is still champion so who cares? As for Booker T though, what does the T stand for? Maybe it means terrible, trash or Troglodyte. Or maybe tempo….I spelled Troglodyte right? I’m stunned. It might mean temporarily employed because all of WCW is going out of business. I thought they already did that.

No WCW star has any business being in MSG, because this is hallowed ground. We get a clip of Vince’s dad being inducted into the MSG Hall of Fame, complete with Todd Pettingil voiceover. This is more like a career retrospective on Vince Sr. and we hear various praise for him with Gorilla Monsoon getting the loudest pop. Oh this is his Hall of Fame induction video. Got it.

Vince guarantees more memorable MSG moments here tonight. That takes us to the theme song.

Brothers of Destruction vs. Dudleys for the titles tonight.

Hardcore Title: Test vs. Rhyno

Test had used the newly debuted Stacy to distract Rhyno into losing the title so this is Rhyno’s rematch. Rhyno starts out strong and hits a running shoulder in the corner. Out to the floor already as Rhyno looks for a weapon. They do a fairly nifty sequence with a trashcan resulting in Rhyno charting head first into it. The announcers talk about MSG instead but that’s probably more interesting anyway.

They go into the crowd and Test suplexes him onto a piece of a barricade to bend it in half. They go to the back now and Test tries to put him through some tables but Rhyno stops him. And never mind as Test puts him through them anyway with an elbow for two. There’s a cart involved but Test is backdropped onto the concrete. A quick Gore puts the title back on Rhyno.

Rating: D. If you’ve seen one of these, you’ve seen them all. Test was nothing of note but somehow he wound up with Stacy Keibler in real life and Stephanie on TV. The match was your usual I hit you, you hit me thing which is only so interesting when it’s not being played for comedy. Not much here.

What is much here is that Mike Awesome (with short hair) runs up the tunnel, hits Rhyno with a pipe and wins the title. That’s the first time a WCW wrestler has had a “match” in MSG ever to my knowledge, which is your historical thing I mentioned in the intro.

Light Heavyweight Title: Jeff Hardy vs. X-Pac

Jeff is 23 here. I’m 23 now so that makes me shake my head. Things speed up very quickly to start and the fans are all over Pac. They do some flips and Jeff fires off a baseball slide to take over. He loads up Whisper in the Wind but Pac kicks him off the top and into the barricade. Pac counters a rana into a powerbomb for two. This is a rematch from last night. A dropkick knocks X-Pac out of the air and here comes Jeff. Bronco Buster meets boot but the Swanton misses and some feet on the ropes give Pac the title.

Rating: C+. Fun old school Cruiserweight style match here with both guys flying all over the place. Jeff was fun to watch when he was on and he was on around this time. Unfortunately they put him back into the Hardy Boys and while they were good, it was kind of a step back for them at this point.

Vince freaks out and tells Austin he was raped by WCW. Austin basically tells him to get over it because he kept the WWF Title here on his own and Vince wasn’t there when Austin needed him. Vince: “How are you?” Austin: “YOU DON’T EVEN CARE!” Vince: “I care.” Austin: “Promise?” They hug and Debra looks like she can’t find a divorce soon enough.

Video on some of the best moments and performers in MSG history, with this one being about Sammartino.

Big Show hits on Trish. This is disturbing.

Vince, Austin and Debra share a vegetable plate. Kurt comes in to a pop and Vince congratulates him for his victory last night. Angle says he’s banged up but he’ll make it. Austin FREAKS and Vince tries to smooth things over with the offer of carrots. Angle sits but won’t have any right now. This is hilarious stuff.

Billy Graham is the next Garden Classic.

Tazz vs. Steven Richards

Richards doesn’t like New York so here’s Tazz to kill him. Lasts 20 seconds, Tazmission. Taz is just MAD over in New York.

Regal and Tajiri have a trophy for Edge. It looks like the Stanley Cup.

Angle has loosened up and is having some vegetables. Austin and Vince have a pow wow and Austin wants Kurt out. The idea is he’s jealous of Vince playing with someone else. Angle: “Hey Steve you want a carrot?” Angle compares their careers and says they could be related. Austin looks like he could break a moose in half. Angle has some celery. These two had some awesome chemistry together when Angle was playing the simpleton.

Time for the King of the Ring coronation ceremony. Regal isn’t thrilled to be in New York but he brings out Edge who won the tournament last night. Regal suggests a five second pose but Tajiri gets in it somehow. Christian takes the trophy and gives an acceptance speech for some reason. He talks about how he had to face harder competition (which is true) and Edge doesn’t sound thrilled.

Now it’s time for Edge’s speech and he welcomes us to a new Era: the Era of AWESOMENESS. And here’s Billy Gunn because he has to be here whenever this tournament is brought out. He whines about never getting to be able to defend his crown but instead had to be at WWF New York. This is heel Billy which is even more annoying.

Edge is talentless apparently but congratulations anyway. Edge says Billy sucks and blows at the same time. Edge asks Billy for a favor: if he’s not on the card in 2003 and just has to host at WWF New York, please shoot him in the head. Edge promises not to Billy Gunn the title, because he’ll actually be entertaining. A match is proposed and made. Basically a face turn for Edge.

Garden Classic: the Alley Fight with Patterson vs. Slaughter. It’s called a boot camp match here but I’ve never heard it called that before. Either way, find it as it’s one of the best brawls you’ll ever see.

Tag Titles: Dudley Boys vs. Undertaker/Kane

Sara comes out with Taker now. The champs are quickly knocked to the floor and the beating is on. Bubba vs. Taker officially starts us off and there’s Old School already. Off to D-Von and the champs hit the double team neckbreaker for two. Off to Kane for more beating. He’s IC Champion here. Kane beats them up on his own (the tag champions remember) and there’s the top rope clothesline for two. Everything breaks down and here’s Albert to Baldo Bomb Kane so D-Von can pin him. Too short to rate but it was basically a squash. Albert won the IC Title on Smackdown.

Bubba takes a chokeslam post match as Kane goes after Albert. And then Page pops up to blast taker with a chair. Page takes Sara down and steals hair extensions.

Regal is ticked off about WCW and in particular…..Jericho…..for rumors saying he might defect if he won the title…..which he didn’t. His punishment is a match with Tajiri. Ok then.

European Title: Matt Hardy vs. Big Show

Trish comes out with Show at the potential promise of a European vacation. Matt has to dodge and move here and chooses to work on the arm. That gets him sent to the floor, where Show hits the post. All Big Show anyway as he drops Matt on the barricade. Trish kisses Matt for some reason, prompting Lita to rip her top off. Show goes after Lita who hits Show low to protect herself. That’s a DQ win for Show in a match too short to rate, but it was basically a squash up until then.

Saturn and Terri are at WWF New York but Shane invades it. Shane talks about how WCW isn’t on TV because of Vince. You know, instead of the losing a million bucks a week for a year. Therefore, since they can’t get on TV, it’s time for an invasion of the WWF. He calls Booker over and it amazes me how different Booker was in just a few months. This is the one that was the only guy in WCW that got over for like two years before they went under and was a guy that could have been awesome. He calls out Austin and I’d love to see that feud, instead of what we got, which is Booker the bumbling idiot.

Vince and Austin are all fired up and since they’re both in New York City, Vince says Austin should go fight Booker right now. Austin recruits Angle as backup.

The APA starts the war effort with guys like…..Funaki and Steve Blackman and Essa Rios. If you can’t see why this is the biggest bomb in wrestling history, I’ve failed at my job.

Garden Classic: Snuka dives off the cage which apparently inspired EVERY WRESTLER EVER to be a wrestler.

Edge vs. Billy Gunn

Fast paced stuff to start but Billy heads to the floor. Baseball slide puts him down and a missile dropkick gets two back inside. Billy hits a spinebuster for no cover. Out to the floor with Billy in control. There’s a guy in the crowd doing a Hogan impression and since we’re watching a Billy Gunn match, the fans cheer for Hogan.

Edge spears him down and makes a comeback until Christian accidentally hits him. Billy gets two off a rollup and Jackhammers Edge for two. There’s a boring chant. Who thought giving BILLY GUNN a long match in 2001 was a good idea? Billy loads up the Fameasser but Christian comes in with a backbreaker so Edge can Impale Billy for the pin.

Rating: F+. And 99% of that is for Gunn. What in the world were they thinking by pushing him OVER AND OVER AGAIN??? I mean he just kept getting time on TV and less and less people cared every time until he owed the people some caring for the interest getting so low. Terribly uninteresting match and the crowd turned on it. Why is Edge facing Billy Gunn anyway? He beat Kurt Angle last night to win the King of the Ring and now he’s got Billy Gunn?

Austin is caught in traffic and doesn’t like it. Angle is a dork. This is all on the phone with Debra.

Classic Garden: the first Wrestlemania.

Chris Jericho vs. Tajiri

Jericho says he’s taking out his aggression on Tajiri. They start off fast, which would be normal speed for everyone else. Jericho looks for the Walls but gets kicked in the head for his luck. Superkick (kind of) and a spinwheel kick get two for Tajiri. Octopus has Chris in trouble and Tajiri kicks a lot. A missile dropkick gets two. Jericho comes back with some clotheslines for two. Regal takes a baseball slide and Tajiri gets caught in the double powerbomb. Regal comes in and beats up Jericho but takes the mist in the face. Lionsault ends this.

Rating: C+. Pretty decent match here. Tajiri was pretty much wasted in WWE as they used him as a comedy character who couldn’t speak English (and finally got a translator with like a week to go before he left) and that’s about it. Fun match though as they let two guys with talent go and it worked as it should have.

Austin and Vince have a plan or something.

We get a shot from WWF New York where Austin and Angle go in…and there’s no Shane or Booker. OH NO! WHO WOULD HAVE SEEN THAT COMING??? Austin: “Booker said he wanted to axe me something. AN AX IS SOMETHING YOU CHOP A TREE DOWN WITH!” Booker and Shane come out, Booker destroys Vince (loosest use of that word ever) and the APA comes out with their army to save him and end the show. Yep that’s it.

Overall Rating: C+. Decent show but not as good as last week with us reaching the Invasion full bore. This never worked at all because Vince couldn’t let anything work on its own pace and the whole thing was wrapped up in like 5 months instead of in like 3 years as it easily could have been. Still though, decent show but it would go downhill after a brief pick up soon.

Remember to like me on Facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/kbwrestlingreviewscom/117930294974885?sk=wall